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Fayetteville hospital's Medicare funding again in jeopardy

For the second time in recent weeks, federal regulators have placed Cape Fear Valley Medical Center on notice that its Medicare funding could be stopped because of questions about its patient care.

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Cape Fear Valley Medical Center
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — For the second time in recent weeks, federal regulators have placed Cape Fear Valley Medical Center on notice that its Medicare funding could be stopped because of questions about its patient care.

The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services has notified Cape Fear Valley Medical Center that it is in "immediate jeopardy" of losing funding for patients unless issues found during a hospital visit last week are not addressed.

CMS uses that term to indicate that a problem it has found compromises patients' health or safety.

The visit followed the Nov. 22 death of a man following his discharge from the hospital.

Adarrin Washington, 30, died on his way home after the hospital discharged him against his will, according to his family. He had non-Hodgkins lymphoma and had spent eight days at Cape Fear Valley before being sent home.

In a letter to Cape Fear Valley's chief executive officer, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services said "the facility staff failed to respond and reassess a change in a patient's condition at the time of discharge."

The hospital has until Dec. 23 to correct the problems.

“Cape Fear Valley Health takes this matter and the immediate jeopardy status very seriously," hospital spokesman Vincent Benbenek said in a statement. "We are confident that, once the surveyors return, they will agree (our policies and procedures comply with federal regulations) and the immediate jeopardy status will be lifted.”

Last month, CMS placed the hospital on immediate jeopardy status in connection with the April death of a patient who had been restrained by security guards. The status was later lifted.

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