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Troubles grow for home care firm after Makayla Norman death

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By Kelly Martin, Josh Sweigart and Doug Page
Staff Writers 11:43 PM Friday, January 20, 2012

DAYTON — Workers for Exclusive Home Care Services and Exclusive Home Caregivers were to be paid in full Friday after the company told workers last week it could not afford to pay them for the hours they worked.

The state Department of Job and Family Services announced last week it planned to end its Medicaid arrangement with Exclusive after two if its employees were indicted in the March 1 death of 14-year-old Makayla Norman.

A company spokesperson said Friday morning that all would be paid, but that those workers who quit last Friday would be getting their checks in the mail rather than in person. The company employs about 100 people.

Sandra Chancellor, a former Exclusive home care aide who quit last Friday, said she was told by management that legal fees had eaten into the company’s cash.

“A lot of us were angry,” she said. “They took our money to pay their legal fees.”

“We are in a legal battle and going through hardships,” owner Sylvia Grubbs said. She said she was angry that some of her employees had quit without notice — “abandoning their patients” is what she called it — when told there would be a delay in payment of wages.

State officials said they would ensure no patients were abandoned.

“As part of termination procedures we work to make sure everyone has a continuity of care and a provider,” said ODJFS spokesman Ben Johnson. “We will make sure there is a continuity of care.”

Chancellor and other former employees said it was not unusual for their paychecks to bounce. Grubbs declined to comment, beyond that her employees and former employees would be fully paid, citing ongoing legal issues.

Exclusive filed a request Jan. 10 to appeal the proposed termination by Job and Family Services. Besides the investigation into Makayla’s death, the state has six pending investigations of Exclusive ranging from concerns about poor communication between nurses and case managers to allegations of exploitation and theft of a consumer’s money and property.

The Montgomery County coroner ruled Makayla’s death a homicide by reason of “medical and nutritional neglect.” A grand jury in November indicted Makayla’s mother, Angela Norman, 42, of Dayton, and Molly Parsons, 41, of Dayton and a licensed practical nurse, on charges of involuntary manslaughter. Both remain in the County Jail on $250,000 bond.

At her death, Makayla weighed 28 pounds and was covered from her neck to her ankles with open bedsores, some packed with her own feces. Makayla battled severe cerebral palsy, could not speak or feed herself, could neither walk nor talk and was confined to bed or a wheelchair.

Parsons, an Exclusive employee, was paid to provide Makayla with 48 hours of care a week through a home waiver program that allowed Makayla to remain with her family, rather than be institutionalized.

A second Exclusive employee, Kathryn Williams, 42, of Englewood and a registered nurse, was paid to monitor Parsons’ care of Makayla. She was indicted on a lesser charge of failing to report abuse and neglect.

A third nurse, Mary Kilby, 63, of Miamisburg and also a registered nurse, was an employee of CareStar of Ohio, which had a multimillion dollar contract with Jobs and Family Services to design care plans and oversee those plans for the tens of thousands of disabled Ohio clients of the home waiver plan. Kilby was Makayla’s case manager. She, too, was indicted on the lesser charge of failing to report abuse and neglect.

At the same time Job and Family Services announced its intention to end its agreement with Exclusive, the department said it would not be renewing CareStar’s contract — worth more than $31.8 million — when it expires in June and would open the contract for bids.

Job and Family Services terminated 1,056 Medicaid providers in 2011, most for not complying with background check rules.

The state’s decision to terminate Exclusive Home Care Services also cuts Medicaid funding to its sister company, Exclusive Home Caregivers. Exclusive Caregivers received $984,392 in 2010 and 2011 caring for elderly patients through an agreement with the Ohio Department of Aging, according to state records.

The agency had 32 ODA clients in Montgomery, Greene and Clark counties in December.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2290 or dpage@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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