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ALBANY — A Capital Region employee of the massive Centers Health Care nursing home network is suing the company for alleged whistleblower retaliation after she claims she was fired for raising concerns about patient safety and the mishandling of patient records.
Cheri Reppenhagen, a former nursing manager at facilities based in Schenectady and Troy, alleged she was fired in January after her complaints were ignored by executives with Centers Health Care, a Bronx-based nursing home company.
While at the Troy Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in 2023, the lawsuit states, Reppenhagen witnessed several violations of safety regulations and brought her complaints to administrators at the Troy facility. But she was ultimately instructed not to make any formal reports, even when patient safety was threatened on a handful of occasions, resulting in injuries, according to her civil case.
The lawsuit, filed two weeks ago in state Supreme Court in Bronx County, adds to a pile of legal woes the for-profit nursing home conglomerate is facing. Last year, two of the company’s top executives were sued by state Attorney General Letitia James for allegations of negligence and widespread Medicaid fraud. The attorney general’s office alleged the company’s top executives had engaged in numerous schemes to siphon money from government health programs for personal gain.
A Times Union story following that lawsuit found that a sister company that deals with health care insurance, known as Centers Plan for Healthy Living, had concurrently been the recipient of multiple contracts worth billions of dollars with the state Department of Health.
Both companies are owned by Kenneth Rozenberg, who has been a subject of numerous civil claims pending in New York.
Centers Health Care was recently assigned two independent monitors to scrutinize the company’s operations and finances as the attorney general’s lawsuit works its way through the civil court system, with a state judge determining attorneys had presented enough evidence of fraud by Rozenberg to merit the appointment.
The company has denied all allegations.
“Centers Health Care is fully committed to delivering high-level clinical care to our residents at all of our facilities, as well as treating all of our employees with all of the respect and dignity they deserve,” spokesman Jeff Jacomowitz said in a statement. “Although we cannot comment on an active lawsuit, we strongly deny these unfortunate allegations made by this former employee.”
Reppenhagen is also claiming gender-based harassment, based on a culture of sexism she alleges was pervasive among the company’s male-dominated corporate headquarters and which trickled down into the facilities where she worked, including the Schenectady Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing.
“This case concerns a group of nursing homes run by a chauvinist, law-breaking leadership team at Centers Health Care that prioritizes illicit profits over resident and employee safety, and then blacklists those who speak up,” the lawsuit states. Reppenhagen is represented by the New York City-based Seppinni Law Firm.
Among the problems Reppenhagen noted during her time as a nursing administrator at the nursing facilities included unsanitary or unsafe conditions, such as exposure to asbestos, urine-soaked bedsheets, and insect infestations.
In other occasions, Reppenhagen was instructed to seek permission to report certain incidents threatening patient safety as “failures,” and was then told not to report those incidents for fear of triggering oversight from regulators.
She also claimed that Centers Health Care offered cash bonuses of $10,000 to nursing facilities that had the lowest number of residents needing hospitalization — a program that incentivized executives to keep severely sick residents out of the hospital, the lawsuit claims. On at least one occasion, Reppenhagen was chastised by the Troy facility’s medical director when she attempted to call emergency services for a sick resident.
“We’re calling on Centers to immediately put an end to its bounty program. … It’s just a terrible, terrible incentive structure,” said Shane Seppinni, the attorney representing Reppenhagen. He added: “She just wants things to be better for the residents and her coworkers, but at every step of the way, they’re stymied and retaliated against.”
Reppenhagen was employed from 2021 to 2024 and is seeking payment for “economic damages, mental anguish, and severe emotional distress,” according to the lawsuit.
The attorney general’s case against Rozenberg and business partner, Daryl Hagler, cited multiple graphic examples of elderly residents forced to endure allegedly inhumane conditions because of understaffed nursing homes, which are a direct result of company policy, according to the state’s litigation.
The allegations in the state’s lawsuit encompass a disturbing array of patient care violations, including several instances where elderly residents were left covered in feces and other waste while they waited hours for nurses to come to their aid. Many developed severe bed sores from not being turned regularly; when residents repeatedly rung call bells, they were ignored by overworked staff.
Supervisors at multiple Centers Health Care facilities pleaded for more robust staffing and to deny new admissions into nursing homes, according to the state’s lawsuit. Those requests were denied by corporate executives.
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