Hospital in Compliance; Medicare Status Intact

A Sherman Oaks hospital involved in a dispute over treatment of a spider bite has tightened emergency-room procedures and will not lose its Medicare accreditation, federal health officials said Friday.

The U. S. Department of Health and Human Services had threatened to revoke Sherman Oaks Community Hospital’s Medicare coverage Friday unless it overhauled its emergency-room policy.

Medicare pays the hospital costs of about 35% of the hospital’s patients.

Federal officials said they acted last month after a 25-year-old transient suffering from a spider bite was transferred from the private, 156-bed facility to a public county hospital without receiving “stabilizing treatment” for the wound.

Further Infraction

Federal officials also alleged that the patient was transferred “without the knowledge and agreement of the receiving facility”--the county’s Olive View Medical Center in Sylmar.

Sherman Oaks officials “corrected the immediate problems, and we terminated our revocation,” said Stan Marcisz, Medicare certification specialist for the Department of Health’s regional headquarters in San Francisco.

Marcisz said his agency is continuing to monitor the Sherman Oaks emergency room. He said the hospital will be inspected again in about 45 days to determine if it is complying with federal regulations that require that patients be in stable condition when transferred or discharged.

“They had some procedures that had to be reworked involving documentation and recording what happens to patients in the emergency room,” Marcisz said Friday.

“The problem stemmed from a transfer of an individual patient. In our opinion, it was hazardous to the patient.”

The victim was identified as a woman who was bitten on the leg by a spider while passing through the San Fernando Valley this summer with her boyfriend.

Federal officials said Olive View doctors diagnosed a deep-vein thrombophlebitis and pulmonary embolism--a life-threatening blood clot condition--after the woman was transferred from the Sherman Oaks emergency room.

Marc Goldberg, administrator of Sherman Oaks hospital, said Friday that his staff has created new patient charts for use in the emergency room.

Inadequate Treatment Denied

But he continued to deny that the hospital failed to give adequate treatment to the spider-bite victim.

Last month, Goldberg speculated that the transient gave “a different history” of her health to Olive View doctors to prompt them to view her injury more seriously.

“The treatment policy remains the same. Every patient who walks through the door is medically evaluated and given care,” he said Friday. “We are totally in compliance with whatever perceived problem there was.”

He said publicity about the government’s threatening to revoke Medicare insurance scared away many patients.

“It’s been a nightmare,” Goldberg said. “I’ve had patient after patient call and say they’d like to come here, but they hear we’ve lost our Medicare. Sherman Oaks Hospital continues to provide quality health care and participate in Medicare,” he said.