Here’s some concerns about a report City Controller Ed Harrington presented to Mayor Newsom, and released to the public, on May 19, regarding the LHH Replacement Program [Project].  Rhetorically, Harrington subtitled his report “Where do we go from here?”

Preliminary observations that are troubling:

• The Chronicle reported that Harrington noted as many as 70% of LHH’s patients do not need to be at LHH.
• The report Harrington released claims 84% of LHH residents are able to leave a skilled nursing facility and return to the community (page 7 of report noted above)
• About 40% of LHH’s current population has a “primary psychiatric diagnosis” (page 8 of Harrington’s) report.

These statistics have been rebutted as being incorrect.  During the May 23, 2005 LHH-JCC meeting (a body comprised of two Health Commissioner’s and members of the LHH Executive Committee, hence the name “Joint Conference Committe”) senior key members of the LHH medical staff indicated that the two-page Attachment ‘A’ to Ed Harrington's report contained wildly inaccurate data; Harrington may have, however unwittingly, used that flawed data on which to base premises and conclusions in the remainder of his eight-page report to Mayor Newsom.

Assuming for a moment, however, that Harrington’s latest “assumptions” were anywhere near accurate given his track record of off-base guesstimating, Newsom may be setting himself up for a major fall in his so-called “polling numbers,” because if these numbers were true, the Feds could conceivably come along and claim:

• If somewhere between 70% and 84% of LHH’s residents do not need to be in a skilled nursing facility, then Medi-Cal (Medicaid) may have potentially been defrauded of funds meant to serve those who do need to be in a skilled nursing facility and who are relying on Medi-Cal.
• Alternatively, if 40% of LHH’s residents have a primary psychiatric diagnosis, then the City may have been improperly admitting people to LHH, since LHH does not have a psychiatric license, and never has.  Not only may improper admissions have ocurred, but perhaps 40% of LHH’s residents may have potentially been placed at an inappropriate level of care, in which they may be potentially receiving sub-standard therapy, since a requirement for admission to LHH is based on having skilled nursing needs, not a primary psychiatric diagnosis.

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