According to Medicare, those penalties now total $154,330, nearly twice what it had been before. It is unclear to me why they have increased. They appear to be based on the same two transgressions for which Gracedale was fined on September 19, 2025. There was no public discussion of this sudden increase or what prompted it at Thursday night's County Council meeting.
According to the Department of Health nursing home facility locator, Gracedale had a provisional license on Sunday, but that has since been upgraded to regular status.
During her Executive Report, Tara Zrinski told Council last Thursday that she had visited Gracedale that very day and is grateful for everyone's dedication. "Their team is invaluable as they care for some of the most vulnerable people in that our residents there are just in some of the most challenging conditions," she said.
Zrinski did draw attention to one of the residents, Rodney Schaffer, an accredited firefighter with 23 years at The Bethlehem Steel. "They're not just residents, they had lives before they came to Gracedale, and we want to honor them as well," she observed.
UPDATED 3/9/26, 8:46 AM
and 3:24 PM
23 comments:
Another cover-up by Mr. McClure. He certainly left the County in a real mess. He presented a budget with a shortfall of millions of dollars and hid that fact from the Council and the taxpayer. It is rumored in the halls of the Court House/Government Center that he is well aware of the fact he won't be the next Congressman and he is already making plans to campaign for "Judge".
Gracemess - the stain just keeps getting larger while council has their collective heads up and locked pondering silly resolutions that amount to nothing
It just keeps getting worse at Gracedale.
Why are they wasting time? They know they need help and are on the clock. Lip service and update reports sound great, but don’t solve real problems and won’t work this time, and visiting the facility to praise a resident will not alleviate the fines,
Someone must research and physically bring in a professional nursing home management team to
Evaluate how to fix and change the
current situation.Thus far, this council and administration are demonstrating lack of expediency
While residents, families, and personnel are in limbo.
We need action, not photo ops.
The newly elected executive was aware of all the above.Do not discount her.
Just cut another 10 COs positions. Pay for that in a hiccup.
This should surprise no one. When people don’t show up to meetings(administrator), don’t present requested reports (administrator/HR Director), visit but segway with information about something else with council (executive), and present what is supposedly positive news (the donation of robotic animals as referenced by Jeff Warren) you know there’s trouble and a clear effort to
hide this from the public. Things aren’t apparently better if Medicare continues to
fine the facility, right? People know even though they claim they don’t know. The taxpayers of Northampton County deserve the truth.
Maybe when Rod gives his daily announcements, he could inform us when the anointed Queen makes her rare visits so she could converse with the hoi polloi, ya think?
Politicians are NOT special people. Very many are in way over their heads and for all the wrong reasons. Even here at the County level. It’s important to continue voting out incumbents. Anyone who has served in an elected position for 2 terms should not be re-elected into a 3rd term.
She then is continuing the lie that everything is fine, right?
PA state site still has it as a provisional license.
Tara and the county’s hearts are in the right place we need gracedale but we need this issue to be fixed and it needs to happen sooner than later. This has to start with new leadership at gracedale, the people who have been in charged have been there long enough with the same results, start there. Things will continue to get worse I am sure if you ask around enough Bernie you will find out and report if you feel so.
That's odd. It was listed regular earlier today. I will fix my post.
Tara has no clue. If only she’d ask for actual help and input but she won’t. Pretending that everything is fine is not the answer. What’s really going on there? Someone must know.
56/67 counties in PA do not own or operate nursing homes. People may need nursing homes, but counties don't need to run them.
Fines continue on a daily basis until the issue(s) cited as a deficiency are corrected. Department of Health receives the facility plan of correction with dates they will be compliant. DoH will follow up to assure deficiency fixed and compliance. If not found they will receive new deficiency and fines will continue as they did not reach compliance. I haven't looked at the website but that's how fines work. They keep accruing daily for every day they don't achieve compliance. Provisional license until compliance obtained
I need to mention Tara's comment. " they had lives before they came to Gracedale"...I sm sure her intentions were well meant but I would encourage her to rephrase that as they also continue their lives when they go to a nursing facility. I prefer to remind everyone hat theresidents contributed to building this county with years of hard work and community involvement. We would be here without those before who worked hard to build this county. They are mother's father's sister's brothers and their lives don't stop because they need assistance
Bernie there are many others in Northampton Co as well as Lehigh Co and Berks Co that fall short of Medicaids rules yet seem to be able to pass local standards? I know you limit your venue to your local venue lately.
Tara does fully understand the awful financial situation Mclure left the County to deal with in 2026. He wanted to brag that he didn't raise taxes for eight years but in order to accomplish that, he underfunded many areas of the budget and screwed the employees with insufficient wages and the retirees with underfunded county commitments which includes Gracedale. This isn't Tara's budget it's McClure's budget and its a disaster. You needed a tax increase but no one except Ron Heckman would do the right thing by proposing a tax increase to keep the County above water. Thank you Ron for caring enough.
A physical visit and photo shoot at Gracedale, by administration and personnel , who have failed to prove they can successfully operate and navigate necessary funding and management program requirements over the past few years, demonstrates only that they can find the building, and offers nothing towards resolving the real problems that currently exist.
Sorry, but she knew and should have addressed it during her short term as controller.
She had council and controller info enough to speak up and chose to stay silent.
"The crown jewel of Northampton County" strikes again.....
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