SCRANTON, Pa. — Back in September, residents at Bloomsburg Nursing and Rehabilitation in Columbia County learned from state health officials they needed to leave for their own wellbeing. Newswatch 16 reported the closing.
At the time, the residents were told by the state that the nursing home could not meet its financial obligations — both for payroll and to ensure the safety of the facility's residents.
DOH survey records dated a month before the nursing home in Bloomsburg shut down reveal the facility owed nearly a quarter-million dollars to staffing agencies and another 148 thousand dollars for food and supplies. It also had an outstanding 429 thousand dollar property tax bill from the county.
That's a similar story to what happened last Friday — at Mountain View Nursing and Rehabilitation on Stafford Avenue in Scranton.
DOH records showed the facility had 7 million dollars in unpaid bills as of last summer and its fire safety system was on the fritz. Those are all reasons the DOH cited in deciding to relocate the building's residents. The city closed it up as a danger.
Beyond dollars and cents, the nursing homes in Scranton and Bloomsburg share another common thread: their ownership.
Action 16 Investigates reviewed county court records and records from the Pennsylvania Department of State. We found both nursing homes owned by LLCs tied to Chaim Scheinbaum and Louis Schwartz, of New Jersey. A review of legal filings in New York and New Jersey also revealed the two men tied to troubled nursing homes there.
Records from the New York state attorney general's office show nonpayment of bills factored into a case involving a now closed nursing home that Scheinbaum managed just north of Albany.
Closer to home, when it came to paying the bills at the nursing homes in both Bloomsburg and Scranton, DOH records show that staff at the nursing homes told officials that incoming invoices were sent to the corporate office for payment.
After that, the records show, payments to vendors and staffing agencies were not made.