Statement from Terry Walker, Director of Operations at New Beginnings Care LLC

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) sent a notice of their intent to terminate the agreement at Oceanside back near the first part of May due to regulatory issues we have not been able to work out with the Department of Community Health. We have tried unsuccessfully through appeal and legal measures to prevent the termination from happening.

Oceanside is a facility that is more than 40 years old and requires a great deal of maintenance and repair. The physical plant and environmental issues are due largely to the age of the building. We do not own the facility. We are a management company that leases the building from the owner. We have spent more than $250,000 in the last 3 months and a great deal more than that over the last year. We have operated the building for less than 3 years. We had the intentions of continuing to make improvements and renovate but are not able to keep the facility open. We have attempted without success over the last several months to work with the owner to transition the operation to another operator.

The care and safety of the residents at Oceanside has always been our mission. There were no issues with the care at Oceanside that lead to the termination, just the physical environment issues.

We submitted a closure plan to CMS that included notifying the 60 residents we had here and their responsible parties of the termination and began the process of relocating the residents. Most have been able to stay in the county. None were relocated to Florida. We will be able to retain many of the employees at another location but not all of them.