SMITHFIELD - Saying they have found violations that constituted "immediate jeopardy" to patients at the Hebert Nursing Home on Log Road, federal and state health officials have given the 133-bed facility until Feb. 1 to make corrections or they will terminate it as a Medicare and Medicaid provider for skilled nursing care.

Additionally, the U.S. agency dealing with Medicare and Medicaid services has been fining the facility $5,500 a day since Dec. 22 and has imposed a denial of payments for any new admissions after Jan. 23.

According to Robert J. Marshall, Rhode Island's assistant director of health, the nursing home has said the violations have been corrected and health officials must now re-inspect the facility to certify compliance.

Marshall declined to offer details of the infractions, saying the investigation is still under way. He said seven violations are involved, but was unsure if they all stemmed from a single complaint or from multiple sources.

He characterized the violations as "among the highest level of complaints."

Helen A. Mulligan, a spokesperson for the Boston regional Medicare and Medicaid Centers, said specifics would not be available until early next month, but confirmed that the violations were directly related to "substandard quality of care."

She termed the infractions "a serious situation," but said that in most cases, nursing homes are able to make the necessary corrections and it is unlikely that existing patients will need to be transferred to other facilities to maintain their government support.

If it did come to that, she said, they would be paid for through March 3 while transfers were being made.

In a Jan. 19 letter to the nursing home's administrator, Alan Barroso, Richard Shaw, a federal Medicare enforcement official, referred to seven regulations that treat topics including "mistreatment/neglect," "dignity and respect of individuality," "effective administration/resident well being," and "responsibilities of medical director."

Shaw told The Valley Breeze & Observer that he was not at liberty to divulge whether the infractions caused actual harm to patients.

Barroso had not returned telephone calls as of press time late Tuesday afternoon, Jan. 24.

According to Mulligan, a computer check revealed no serious deficiencies, other than the current ones, at least for the past five years.

The Nursing Home had been operated since 1947 by the Hebert Family before being sold in July, 2010, for a reported $6.3 million, to American Senior Living Communities, which also owns the Mt. St. Francis Nursing Home in Woonsocket and others in Maryland and Pennsylvania.

According to Medicare.gov, a government website that Marshall said is a resource for comparing nursing home quality, on a five-star scale - with five the best ranking and three average - Hebert had an overall ranking of three stars, based on information gathered between January and September of 2010.

It rated two stars on health inspections, four on nursing home staffing, and three on "quality measures," which track how well a nursing home deals with a wide variety of patient issues such as pressure sores, falls, incontinence and weight loss.

Official ratings for 2011 were not available because the government is changing its ratings system, but according to Shaw, the Hebert facility up until the current problems "has provided good care."

He said that while the consequences of violations involve potential termination of Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, inspections include assessing care given all skilled nursing care patients, not just those on government programs.

A public notice published by the government agency Tuesday, and signed by Shaw, states, "The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has determined that Hebert Nursing Home has failed to maintain compliance with Medicare requirements."

According to Mulligan, citations were issued after inspections by the state on Dec. 22 and Jan. 9, and the nursing home was given 23 days after the latter date to get into compliance or lose its status as a government provider.

Medicare is a federal program, and Medicaid is operated through both the state and federal governments.