The team from the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services left Friday night after their surprise inspection of LBJ Hospital.
In a report to the cabinet meeting, CEO Taufetee John Faumuina said staff of LBJ are not happy that the CMS officials tend to center only on weaknesses and inadequacies of the hospital but do not see the improvements that have been made.
KHJ News understands that the CMS officials made it clear that their surprise inspections do not sugar coat the conditions that they find and the purpose is to effect improvements in delivery of health care.
The team also heard complaints from certain officials about their superiors or managers, and CMS pointed out to them that these complaints are not under their purvie.
In his verbal report to the cabinet Taufetee said as far as he’s concerned the CMS inspections is welcomed because it puts staff on notice of deficiencies that need to be improved. ,
He said the team explained that if they don’t respond to LBJ’s corrective action plan, as was the case after last year’s visit, not to be alarmed.
The CEO quoted the CMS officials saying no response is a good thing, it’s when they hear back from CMS that is not good.
At the time that Taufetee spoke to the cabinet meeting, he said the visiting team had not indicated when they will leave.
He said an exit meeting had not been planned but he was hoping that after the cabinet meeting, CMS would say that they were leaving Friday night.
KHJ News received confirmation from a senior LBJ official that the CMS group did leave Friday night and the exst meeting held that afternoon between the team and LBJ was generally positive.
The official said there were deficiencies, but nothing major, and there were also positives.
