VOLUME 14 NUMBER 7 ■ COLUMBIABUSINESSREPORT.COM
Part of the
APRIL 26-MAY 9, 2021 ■ $2.25
network
LEGAL L ABY RINT H
Half-packed house 2021 season to open with Segra Park at half capacity. Page 2
Nursing homes face plethora of questions in wake of pandemic Self-driving cars Deep Orange 12 project fast-tracking technology. Page 6
A different view
Women key to closing manufacturing talent gap. Page 10
Branching out
New Columbia law firm features familiar faces. Page 15
INSIDE
Upfront................................. 2 SC Biz News Briefs................. 3 In Focus: Law...................... 14 List: Law Firms................... 17 At Work............................... 21 Viewpoint............................23
By Melinda Waldrop
A
mwaldrop@scbiznews.com
s the COVID-19 pandemic changed the rules in almost every industry on a near-daily basis, nursing homes in particular struggled to keep up with the ever-shifting landscape and may face even more uncertainty going forward. “One of the big challenges for the facilities has been dealing with the almost-constant rule and regulation change,” said Kelli Sullivan, a partner at Columbia law firm Turner Padget and a member of the firm’s health care litigation team. “(Guidance) from the CDC and Medicare changed literally every week, and so that was quite a challenge. Once you implement something, if it changes two or three days later, it’s a little bit like turning the Titanic. (But) I think the lessons we’ve learned, if we handle them well and take what we’ve learned, could really ultimately in the long run improve the
industry. It’s going to be painful, but anything worth having always is. This was a rough year, but it has made all of the facilities a lot more cognizant of their weak spots.” Nursing homes and residential care facilities were locked down in the first months of the pandemic, with South Carolina beginning to allow limited visitation last September and before requiring all facilities to allow visitation in March. During that stretch, family members were limited to emails or FaceTime to check on loved ones. “I have said several times, I think that everything that stinks about getting older is made worse by COVID,” said Sarah St. Onge, an associate at Millender Elder Law in Columbia. “If you’re doing OK and you’re living at home and you’re independent and you get COVID, a week afterward, you might end up in assisted living. If you’re in assisted living, you might end up in the nursing home. If you’re in a nursing home, you might end up in a hospital. The isolation is terrible.”
Labor win
NLRB stands by S.C. Ports Authority’s unfair labor complaint. Page 7
Nursing homes would be well-served to put into place lessons learned during the pandemic, Sullivan said, even as they await any potential legal fallout from COVID-19 infections and deaths at facilities. Best practices could include revamped disaster planning, increasing staffing options through resources such as temp agencies, and a commitment to “document, document, document,” she said. “Let’s say your facility is low on PPE, and you contacted supplier A, supplier B and supplier C, and you can’t get any N95 masks. It’s great you’ve done that. You’re doing your best to comply. But four years from now when you’re sued about this, you’ve got to be able to say well, here’s the evidence that I contacted supplier A to get more and supplier B or C, and I couldn’t get it, so our next best step was to do X. But if you don’t document those things, memories fade in the fog of everything See NURSING HOMES, Page 22