The owners of Lake View Manor have asked federal officials for a third chance to show the troubled nursing home’s shortcomings have been fixed.

Without it, the home likely would be forced out of business, and more than 30 residents would be without a place to live.

“We’ve taken them a plan. It was hand delivered yesterday,” Lake View administrator Dick Boswell said Friday.

State and federal officials last month blocked the nursing home at 3015 W. 31st St. from receiving Medicaid and Medicare payments for residents admitted after March 9. Most of the home’s 34 residents are on Medicaid.

The “denial of payment” was imposed after two inspections — Jan. 28 and March 1 — showed the home had failed to correct each of the 28 deficiencies cited during a December 2003 inspection.

Lake View now needs to go through a third inspection to show the remaining five deficiencies have been corrected. But Medicaid and Medicare regulations guarantee only two inspections, not three.

“A third revisit has to be earned,” said Paul Shumate, a branch manager within the Division of Survey and Certification at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services regional office in Kansas City, Mo.

Decision expected

A decision whether to authorize the Kansas Department on Aging to conduct a third inspection should be made in about a week, Shumate said.

Without a third inspection, Lake View’s contracts with Medicare and Medicaid would be terminated June 9, forcing it to close.

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Shumate said his office directed Lake View to submit a detailed plan for overhauling its operations.

“It can’t be like the ones they’ve filed in the past because those haven’t worked,” he said. “It’s a higher standard for them to meet.”

Shumate confirmed Friday his office had received the plan. He said Lake View residents and their families should not panic.

“They may want to explore their options, just to find out what they are,” he said. “But there’s still plenty of time. There’s no urgency at this point.”

If a third inspection shows that not all deficiencies have been corrected, Lake View’s Medicare and Medicaid payments still would be cut off June. 9.

“I don’t think that will happen,” Boswell, the home’s administrator, said. “If we can get a third revisit, we’ll pass.”

Poor care

Built in the early 1970s, Lake View and its predecessors — Cherry Manor, then Colonial Manor — have been penalized several times for poor care.

In January, state officials fined Lake View $5,000 after confirming reports that a disoriented resident had wandered from the building unnoticed. At the time, the wind chill was between 29 and 32 degrees.

Earlier, a former director of nursing at Lake View filed an eight-page complaint with state officials, alleging Lake View co-owner Charles K. Pomeroy, rather than Boswell, was effectively running the facility despite lacking the credentials and proper licensing to make key decisions.

Pomeroy, a former attorney, denied acting as an administrator.

“I’m basically a payroll clerk,” he told the Journal-World.

Pomeroy pleaded no contest in 1992 to a charge of felony fraud after being accused of forging a judge’s signature while handling a man’s estate in Shawnee County. Afterward, his law license was put on “indefinite suspension.” It remains suspended.

Pomeroy and his parents own Lake View. He did not respond to a Journal-World request for comment Friday .

Courthouse records show neither Pomeroy nor his parents paid Lake View’s property taxes in 2002 or 2003, leaving bills of $25,882 and $24,559, respectively.

Lake View also owes a Wichita employment agency more than $15,600.

“I’ve obtained a judgment against them. I’m waiting on the garnishment order now,” said Brian Powers, president of Home Healthcare Connection, a company that provides troubled homes with nurses and aides.

“I wish somebody in all this would ask the question: Where’d the money go?” Powers said. “The feds paid Lake View for services we provided, but we didn’t get paid. How can that be?”