A Novant hospital in North Carolina narrowly avoided termination of its Medicare contract Aug. 12 by hiring hundreds of nurses to address issues state inspectors identified in June, according to an Aug. 17 report from WECT News 6. Most of the newest hires were travel nurses, the station said.
CMS notified Wilmington, N.C.-based Novant Health that New Hanover Regional Medical Center was in jeopardy of losing its Medicare contract if serious "deficiencies" were not addressed by Aug. 12, according to the report.
The hospital did not meet "conditions of participation" in Medicare regarding patient rights, nursing services, emergency services, quality assessment and performance improvement, according to a letter to the hospital's CEO, Shelbourn Stevens, from federal officials.
"If the hospital is found to have significant deficiencies and therefore fails to comply with the conditions of participation, we are required to keep the hospital under state agency monitoring until there is full compliance with all of the Medicare conditions of participation," the letter stated.
Hospital executives said that during a reinspection Aug. 11, health inspectors gave them the verbal assurance that they had sufficiently corrected the problems and that their Medicare contract would remain in effect.