Nonprofit selling Queens nursing home to for-profit for $41M

A nursing home in Queens is moving from a nonprofit to a for-profit provider for $41 million in the wake of a Medicaid fraud scandal.

Bronx-based CenterLight Health System plans to sell its Margaret Tietz Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Jamaica to a group of limited liability companies whose owners include Cassena Care principals Pasquale DeBenedictis and Alex Solovey and Workmen’s Circle MultiCare Center chief executive Solomon Rutenberg, according to Crain’s. The state still needs to approve the deal.

CenterLight has been selling its properties in the wake of a 2016 agreement to pay $47 million to the state and federal governments to settle charges of Medicaid fraud. It previously sold its Beth Abraham Center in the Bronx and its Martine Center in Westchester to Centers Health Care for a total of $77.8 million, and its last remaining nursing home after Margaret Tietz would be Brooklyn’s Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation.

The price for CenterLight’s Margaret Tietz facility, which contains 200 beds, is split between $38.5 million for the real estate and $2.5 million for operations.

Nursing home operator SentosaCare sold its Little Neck Care Center earlier in February to an LLC affiliated with Central Assisted Living for $25.3 million. [Crain’s] – Eddie Small