WSHB Partner Constance Endelicato was quoted in the June 8, 2020 Skilled Nursing News article, "Nursing Homes Face Fines, Lawsuits Unless They Test for Covid-19 — But Access Often Out of Their Hands"
In this article, Ms. Endelicato wrote:
“Testing capability is riddled with a number of factors that often are out of the hands of the nursing facility,” Constance Endelicato, a partner at the law firm Wood, Smith Henning & Berman who represents health care providers that include SNFs, wrote to Skilled Nursing News in an e-mail on June 3. “The facilities face the daunting task of attempting to abide by the governing recommendations, keeping in mind that with the exception of New York, recommendations will not necessarily define the standard of care under the pandemic crisis. We need to remember that the entire medical community was not prepared for this unknown and eerily unpredictable virus.”
One of the greatest challenges is for SNFs is the lack of a uniform strategy for Covid-19 testing, and the lack of a support system to implement tests, she said. Some of the factors involved include the availability of test kits, the cost and manpower, and the ability of laboratories to process the test kits, Endelicato said.
“Compliance with various recommendations may simply not be possible due to lack of testing, manpower to perform the testing, and specific laboratory processing capabilities,” she said in the email.
The article can be read in full here.