A judge has ordered the state of Pennsylvania to turn over records regarding the ownership of a nursing home chain, despite the new operators asking to keep the information private.
The Pennsylvania Department of Health was ordered Friday to turn over the records regarding the transfer of ownership of 35 Golden Living nursing homes to several new operators, Penn Live reported.
A local news reporter sought copies of correspondence between the department and the facility owners regarding the change of ownership starting from Jan. 1, 2016, according to the report. The reporter also requested all agreements and contracts regarding ownership changes for the same time period.
The new operators had appealed a December 2018 ruling to disclose the records and argued the documents were confidential proprietary information and trade secrets and are not subject to public release under state law, according to the report.
A judge, however, disagreed with the argument saying the operators didn’t prove the record disclosure would “result in a substantial competitive injury” in the nursing home business, the report stated.
