A national testing lab has filed a complaint against a New York nursing home over an unpaid COVID-testing bill of nearly a quarter of a million dollars.
Bioreference Health LLC alleges that Brookhaven, NY-based Bellhaven Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing Care breached an agreement to pay an outstanding balance of nearly $270,000 for COVID-19 testing ordered between June 2020 and March 2021.
Bioreference filed its complaint Friday in the Eastern District of New York. Efforts to reach representatives for Bellhaven and Bioreference for comment Tuesday were unsuccessful.
It’s unclear why Bellhaven was forced to pay for COVID tests when the government was supposed to supply them, although shortages were at times acute in the early days of the pandemic.
In May 2020, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) ordered nursing homes and adult care facilities like Bellhaven to test all personnel twice a week, the complaint said. If a facility did not comply with the order, it would be subject to steep fines or even potential suspension and revocation of their operating license.
Bioreference claims that it entered into an agreement with Bellhaven in May 2020 to perform COVID tests upon request, for a fee.
According to Stephen Hanse, president and CEO of the New York State Health Facilities Association, testing kits were not uniformly available or delivered to providers until well into the pandemic.
“When Cuomo instituted the twice-a-week COVID testing mandate in 2020, nursing homes in New York were left to their own devices to secure testing,” Hanse told McKnight’s. “Moreover, Cuomo, unlike almost every other governor in the nation, refused to provide any of the additional federal funds the state received to nursing homes to help offset the exorbitant COVID testing costs associated with his twice a week testing mandate.
“Given the dire financial circumstances many nursing homes are presently facing as a consequence of the pandemic and New York’s nation-leading Medicaid shortfall, it won’t be surprising if other providers are not be able to pay some or all the high-priced lab costs of the state’s unfunded COVID testing mandate,” he added.
