Category: Health Care
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Betrayal 5 – Lucas Lodge LLC
Photo: Lucas Lodge Residential 4-Person Group Home by James C. Sherlock This is a real-life horror story. One hundred and two serious incidents with injuries reported since 2019 by a single provider of community-based residential services whose tiny houses host a maximum of 24 intellectually and developmentally disabled adults at a time. Not counting…
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Betrayal 4 – Portsmouth
by James C. Sherlock DD/ID (Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities) refers to services, supports, and classifications for individuals with cognitive, physical, or emotional impairments. The author’s first three articles on this subject provided background on Virginia’s broken system of services to that population. In many instances, it doesn’t work well due to combinations of oversight failures…
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Betrayal 3 – Out-of-Control Programs
by James C. Sherlock Medicaid and Medicare are established under the Social Security Act. They creates federal and state organizations to set rules, monitor compliance, provide funding, sanction, and ultimately exclude those who misuse funds or fail to follow the rules. Federal and state governments have proven better at spending than at oversight. Virginia’s…
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A Dangerous Mission Creep for Virginia’s Public Schools
by Derrick A. Max Virginia parents should be alarmed that the Virginia General Assembly just passed House Bill 355 which mandates annual mental health screenings for all public school students in grades 6 through 12. While framed as a compassionate response to a very real “mental health crisis,” it represents a fundamental shift in the mission of public education: from academic instruction to clinical surveillance. By…
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Betrayal 2 – The Virginia General Assembly
by James C. Sherlock People, including our elected representatives in the General Assembly of Virginia, might not know that the Commonwealth is subject to a permanent federal court injunction requiring compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The “Commonwealth of Virginia” is enjoined, not just the executive branch. The author herein informs the…
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Betrayal
by James C. Sherlock This will be the first of a series of reports on the scandalous failures of the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services (DBHDS) in its stewardship of Virginia’s compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in matters affecting the safety and health of people with intellectual and developmental…
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VDH Rejects CDC Vaccination Guideline Changes
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Virginia has joined 23 other states and the District of Columbia in rejecting the new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control regarding childhood vaccinations. The CDC guidelines no longer include hepatitis A and B, rotavirus, flu, COVID-19 and meningitis in the routine immunization schedule. Explaining that the recent changes in the…
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Virginia’s Medicaid Finances
Includes $21.8 million paid to managed care programs for dead enrollees.
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“The facility staff failed …”
by James C. Sherlock Either the title of this article or “the facility failed” is stock language used in every summary of a citation for a nursing home’s violation of federal regulation. It is the truth, but not the whole truth. Inspectors come to a nursing home in Virginia once every couple of years. The…
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Virginia Nursing Home Laws Avoid Chains and Subverted by Weak Sanctions
by James C. Sherlock Delegate Rodney Willet, D-Henrico, is trying to do the right thing for the right reasons. He has introduced HB 605 to amend § 32.1-127. (Effective January 1, 2026) Regulations. He added a new section B. 35 to establish staffing standards for Virginia nursing homes. Del. Willett is joined by many members of…
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Out-of-State Donors Push Nursing Home Campaign Contributions to New Heights
by James C. Sherlock “Organizing for Virginia Seniors” has jumped to number two on VPAP’s list of Top Political Donors in Virginia behind Dominion Energy. The funding for “Organizing for Virginia Seniors” comes from New York and New Jersey nursing home chains, about which this author has been less than complimentary. And then there…
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The Busiest Physician in Virginia
by James C. Sherlock In the first article in this series, the author revealed the names of the medical directors of each of Virginia’s nursing homes and the hours of medical director time for each facility as reported in the second quarter of 2025. Almost half of Virginia’s nursing homes reported zero hours from their…
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Is There a Doctor in the House?
Part 1: Medical Directors by James C. Sherlock The active presence of the medical director in a nursing home is vital to maintaining the quality of care. By overseeing medical practices, implementing care policies, ensuring compliance with professional standards, and, if required, butting heads with facility administrators and owners, the medical director plays a crucial…
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School Districts Skirt State Requirements in Mental Health Outsourcing
by Victoria Manning Restoration News has uncovered school districts across Virginia offering telehealth mental health therapy for children without parental permission. State law permits telehealth in schools, but requires parental consent and the adoption of school board policies on the topic. Federal law also prohibits the disclosure of private student information, but these laws are ignored in…