North Mountain Medical and Rehabilitation Center

A relative was released into a skilled nursing facility from the hospital, with specific goals to accomplish for release from the facility. The patient achieved those goals in two days, but he was not released for another six days. We could not find out why, and when an administrator finally met with us, she told us that he could leave AMA instead of telling us why his discharge was delayed. When he finally was released a day after his discharge papers came through, he was sent home without his prescriptions. I called three times, with enough time to fill the prescription before the patient ran out of it, each time being told that the facility would mail the prescriptions. Two days after he had run out of the prescription, someone finally drove them to the patient's residence.

I had a relative in this facility for eight days even though he had met his discharge goals after two days. The facility is understaffed, the nursing staff is slow to respond to call buttons, and, according to written materials and the social services person we finally spoke to, the administrative staff, including the case manager, wait two to three weeks before meeting with patients to address discharge goals. All calls to anyone, including patients, go through a main line, which isn't always answered even during business hours. Most of the administrators didn't meet the patient or return phone messages. The one administrator who finally spoke with the patient and me when we asked why he hadn't been discharged said that he wasn't a prisoner and could leave AMA, but she never told us why he hadn't been released three days after he had met the discharge goals that we had received from the hospital. The physical and occupational therapists were good, but the equipment used in therapy looked dirty and some of it was even broken. The final therapist who worked with the patient, the day before he was released, told us how surprising it was to see that the patient hadn't been discharged. Even after the patient's discharge papers came through, the facility waited another day to release him, and then he was discharged without his prescriptions. I called three times to get the prescriptions sent to us, which three different persons told us they would mail, but the prescriptions remained at the facility. After the patient went two days without one of his prescriptions, something the facility could have avoided by mailing the prescriptions or calling them into the pharmacy, the case manager drove the prescriptions to the patient's residence.