State lists nursing homes with coronavirus, which some claim has discrepancies

MELBOURNE, Fla. - It's the list that no facility wants to be on, and many facilities claim the list is wrong.

FOX 35 News investigated and found about 30 senior living places who say they are trying to correct the record.

Seven pages with more than 300 senior care facilities are listed by Florida‘s Department of Health (DOH). DOH says the names and respective counties are the locations where a resident or staff member tested positive for coronavirus. However, in some instances, management at the home says there is no presence of VOCID-19 and want to be taken off the list.

FOX 35 News spoke with two homes in Central Florida that are claiming the DOH is wrong.

First, Brookdale in Melbourne, where management says there was confusion because the parent company used to own other Brevard County homes.  They no longer own the facility and claim somebody somewhere typed in their facility, but that was a mistake. Brookdale says its working with DOH to get this sorted out. 

At the Encore at Avalon Park in Orlando, management says someone got a presumptive positive result from a DOH test, but after additional tests, turned out to be negative. Therefore, Encore wants to removed.

County Health Departments say discrepancy concerns need to be directed to Tallahassee. 

The State Office says it is working to make the list as accurate as possible but an expert we spoke with says, people should take the list with a grain of salt. 

"I think the ones that are not on the list yet will be on the list eventually," said Candy Cohn, a senior advisor.

Cohn's company Oasis Senior Advisors does business with senior homes all over Florida, and she says she has seen the industry taking this crisis seriously. The facilities she knows are sending weekly or daily updates to families and being transparent, she adds. Cohn says the state's list might frighten some people, but a reported case of coronavirus is less important than the response at the facility to that case.

"Blaming one facility, if they’ve been doing everything right, is not the way to go." Cohn said.

Cohn says the list lacks context -- you might see the name of the facility, but you don’t know if it’s a resident or a staff member or how many cases are at that place or how old the case is.  She says relatives should follow up with management for details.