CHICAGO — A federal judge has said Aurora Lakeshore Hospital can’t challenge a federal government decision ending its Medicare and Medicaid funding.
On Dec. 21, 2018, U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman had granted Aurora Lakeshore's requests for a temporary injunction and restraining order against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which cut off federal funding following reports of “rampant” patient abuse. But on Dec. 19, 2019, Coleman issued an order vacating her earlier order and terminating the hospital’s civil litigation.
The 160-bed hospital on Chicago’s North Side provides psychiatric care for children, treating about 5,000 patients every year. Most of the children are covered by Medicare and Medicaid, according to court papers. The Illinois Department of Public Health said it inspected the facility four times in the summer and fall of 2018, alleging Aurora failed to protect patients from sexual and physical abuse, didn’t report and track allegations patients were sexually abused and failed to hospitalize a patient after the patient complained of such abuse.
CMS gave Aurora the opportunity to furnish a plan to rectify the shortcomings IDPH identified after is first and third inspections, but CMS rejected Aurora’s final proposal and on Dec. 15, 2018, said it was terminating the provider agreement.
When asking Coleman to grant the injunction, Aurora argued the government didn’t give it enough time to correct the problems. Although she largely agreed with that position last year, her December 2019 opinion made it clear “CMS is not required to allow a provider to correct deficiencies” for the type of noncompliance cited in the funding decision, such as when “noncompliance immediately jeopardizes patient health and safety.”
CMS further pointed out Aurora completed an administrative hearing, which the agency said constitutes sufficient due process. Coleman said Aurora Lakeshore can appeal an administrative law judge’s decision to a Departmental Appeals Board. Further, she cited a Nov. 26, 2019, administrative law judge finding that Aurora Lakeshore was noncompliant with certain Medicare participation and patient’s rights conditions as of Nov. 21, 2018, providing a proper legal basis for ending the provider agreement.
“In discussing Aurora’s failure to timely and fully investigate allegations of abuse,” Coleman wrote, “the ALJ stated ‘Aurora had no interest in bettering itself by improving its processes to better protect its patients.’ In relation to Aurora’s patients, the ALJ concluded ‘these are some of the most vulnerable people in our society and Aurora has shown it is not up to the task of keeping these children safe.’ ”
The ruling comes days after Aurora Lakeshore was accused in a separate legal action of allowing staff and others at the facility to turn it into a "hospital of horrors" for minor children patients subjected to years of alleged sexual abuse and other forms of abuse.
On Dec. 18, the Cook County Public Guardian filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of seven children, alleging they were victims of that abuse. That suit also said the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services covered up the children’s plight because it had nowhere else to place them.
“DCFS had worn out its welcome at other Chicagoland psychiatric hospitals due to the state of Illinois’ failure to make timely payments to vendors,” according to the Guardian’s lawsuit, “and DCFS’ historic inability to place children in a less restrictive setting once they completed their psychiatric treatment.”
The complaint, filed through Loevy & Loevy, of Chicago, said some of the children represented were as young as 7 when they “were subjected to or witnessed unspeakable acts of sexual abuse by staff and peers” while also being “forced to live under the constant threat of involuntary sedation at the hands of vindictive, mean-spirited and improperly trained staff that, in some instances, should never have been allowed to work with or near children.”