by James C. Sherlock

I published in February 2025 a series of articles on a nursing home wrongful death scandal that was revealed when police swarmed Colonial Heights Rehabilitation and Nursing Center (Colonial Heights) in late December of 2024.

The government has alleged in court that a woman, helpless with cerebral palsy and diabetes, died in late October last year after prolonged suffering from sepsis suffered as a result of criminal abuse and neglect at Colonial Heights.

Criminal charges have been filed against 19 members of the facility staff.

I wrote in February in Virginia’s Nursing Homes and the Courts: No charges have been filed against any corporate manager or owner in either of the two Colonial Heights cases. … Perhaps the indicted employees are not the only culprits. 

Perhaps indeed they are not.

I mentioned in the story that Mr. Moshe Rajchenbach holds a mortgage on Colonial Heights. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) data show he has been far more involved than that.

Mr. Rajchenbach’s data. Skilled Nursing Facility All Owners database combined with nursing home Provider Information data show a great deal, none of it good, about the facilities like Colonial Heights with which he remains personally involved.

He occupies various ownership and leadership positions in eleven Virginia skilled nursing facilities, another in North Carolina and two in Delaware. I list below the facilities and Mr. Rajchenbach’s association dates.

A. 100% direct ownership — all in Virginia, all with association dates of 2020-01-17

• Valley Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, Chilhowie;
• Westport Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, Richmond
• Glenburnie Rehab & Nursing Center, Richmond; and
• Fairfax Rehabilitation and Nursing Center.

B. Corporate Officer — all association date of 2021-05-28 except Glenburnie:

• Glenburnie Rehab & Nursing Center, Richmond – 2020-01-17
• Charlottesville Health and Rehabilitation Center
• Princess Anne Health & Rehabilitation Center, Virginia Beach
• Parham Health Care & Rehab Center, Richmond
• Franklin Health and Rehabilitation Center, Rocky Mount
• Stanleytown Health and Rehabilitation Center, Bassett VA
• Guilford Health Care Center, Greensboro, NC
• Pike Creek Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, Wilmington, DE, a Delaware Special Focus Facility (SFF) (long-term problem) candidate.
• Wilmington Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, Wilmington, DE, another SFF candidate – the state only has three.

C. W-2 Managing Employee – All 2020-01-17 except Colonial Heights

• Colonial Heights Rehabilitation and Nursing Center – 2023-01-05
• Valley Rehabilitation and Nursing Center
• Westport Rehabilitation and Nursing Center
• Glenburnie Rehab & Nursing Center
• Fairfax Rehabilitation and Nursing Center

D.  5% or Greater Mortgage Interest — Colonial Heights Rehabilitation and Nursing Center – 100% – 2023-01-05.

Facility data.

A custom spreadsheet tracks the performance of Mr. Rajchenbach’s ownership share of MFA facilities against both Virginia and national averages in seven key performance measures. They threaten patient safety across the board. As a group they are so far worse than national and state numerical means and so consistent in those failures that it can only represent a business model.

I have chosen seven measures which taken together provide major insights into patient safety. They also show that hospitals which transfer patients to dangerous facilities are culpable for doing so. They can read Medicare Compare just like the rest of us.

1. Medicare staffing rating, the only five-star measure rated nationally rather than within each state.

• The national average in July of 2025 is 2.81.
• In Virginia 2.46.
• In the Virginia facilities for which Mr. Rajchenbach is personally responsible, the staffing rating averages 1.36. Out of a possible five.

2. Average Occupancy rate. I used Excel to calculate occupancy rates from federal data on beds and daily occupancy numbers nationally, in Virginia and in each of Mr. Rajchenbach’s facilities. Occupancy is the measure which the owners most directly control. They can stop admitting new patients until staffing is sufficient to meet patient needs documented by the facilities’ own assessments.

• The national average occupancy rate reported for July of 2025 is 78.4%.
• Virginia average occupancy rate with our restrictive CON law is 86.6%.
• Mr. Rajchenbach’s facilities average 92.7%. He has never taken his foot off the gas.

3. Total nurse turnover and 4. Registered nurse turnover. The work in nursing homes is difficult. Most nurses are smart. Most value their oaths. They will not continue to work in one that puts them in constant moral and legal jeopardy.

• Virginia nursing homes as a whole are very close to the national averages of 47.5% annual total nurse turnover and 44.4% registered nurse turnover. That is chilling enough, but;
• Mr. Rajchenbach’s Virginia facilities average 58% turnover in both measures.

So, in a game of musical chairs for many, more than a dozen nurses at Colonial Heights were arrested in December and indicted.

5. Facility Administrator turnover. These are the people that run the place on a day-to-day basis.

• nationally, .58 administrators on average leave a facility each year.
• in Virginia .68.
• in Mr. Rajchenbach’s facilities .82.

The administrator at Colonial Heights was arrested in December and indicted.

6. Nursing Case-Mix index: the measure of how much nursing support for post-operative recovery and rehabilitation and the activities of daily living.

• The higher the number, the more significant the patients’ needs.
• So the higher the number, the higher the per diem and approved length of stays from Medicare, Medicaid and commercial insurers.

When n= nearly 15,000 nationally and 290 in Virginia, statistical deviations are sharply defined:

• National average case mix index 1.360
• Virginia average case mix index is nearly identical at 1.390
• Mr. Rajchenbach’s ten Virginia facilities average 1.551. Princess Anne Health & Rehabilitation Center had a case mix index of 1.714.

The case-mix index numbers are simply too high and consistent to pass for coincidence. In the latest data, Medical Facilities of America nursing homes form the majority of the 61 with the highest Nursing Case Mix Indices among 290 facilities. They have the:

• highest Medicare and Medicaid patient per diem reimbursements;
• longest authorized patient stays; and
• biggest profits.

7. Average Number of complaints substantiated as violations of federal law and regulations by state inspectors.

• National average 6.4
• Virginia average 6.5
• Mr. Rajchenbach’s facilities 29.5.

Seriously, his eleven Virginia facilities averaged 29.5 complaints in three years that were reported, inspected and cited for having broken federal laws or regulations. The ones which Mr. Rajchenbach was paid to manage averaged 32.

In a calculated ratio of complaint citations to average patient population, MFA had the worst three and five of the worst nine nursing homes in Virginia. Those five included Mr. Rajchenbach’s Glenburnie, Princess Anne and Westport facilities. The worst two nursing homes in the Commonwealth by that ratio are MFA’s Henrico Health & Rehab in Highland Springs and Bayside Health and Rehab in Virginia Beach.

Bottom line. Moshe Rajchenbach’s Virginia facilities on average failed all of those seven key performance measures at statistically significant levels compared to peers.  That is based on data that MFA reported to the government, so it must be explained rather than challenged.

But he is responsible for that wrongful death in Colonial Heights only if charged and convicted by a jury of his peers.