RICHMOND, Va. — The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) has confirmed a leadership shakeup within its office responsible for regulating health care facilities— the Office of Licensure and Certification (OLC). The OLC licenses facilities including hospitals and nursing homes and ensures their ongoing compliance with care and safety standards through inspections and investigations.
VDH said it's focused on "process improvements" moving forward, but the changes have sparked concerns and a protest resignation from another high-level leader in the OLC.
During a Joint Commission on Health Care meeting last week, a lawmaker asked State Health Commissioner Dr. Karen Shelton where OLC Director Kim Beazley was.
“Is Kim Beazley in the room by any chance?” asked Sen. Christopher Head (R-Western Virginia).
“She’s not with us today," Shelton responded.
It would later be learned that Beazley is no longer in her position after serving as OLC Director since 2020. Overall, she has worked at the agency for more than 30 years. VDH spokesperson Maria Reppas said Beazley has moved to a newly created role as a senior policy advisor.
"In this position, she will play a critical role in advising the Commissioner and other senior VDH leaders on healthcare facility policy and regulation," Reppas said.
OLC's Deputy Director Jim Jenkins will serve as acting director as VDH looks for a permanent replacement.
In a statement, Reppas said VDH is keeping “an eye towards change management and process improvement while focusing on strategic planning, enhanced recruitment and retention efforts of Medical Facility Inspectors (MFIs), and a pointed interest in providing the utmost support to the current team at OLC.”
The change comes amid a challenging time for the office, as CBS 6 has covered in previous investigations.
With a 42% vacancy rate of inspectors, according to Shelton, the OLC has struggled to respond to complaints and complete timely inspections, also called surveys, of nursing homes. Family members of nursing home residents previously expressed concerns about how long it took the agency to investigate the complaints they submitted.
As of Tuesday, federal data shows Virginia has the second highest percentage in the country of nursing facilities overdue for routine inspection— a statistic that Democratic U.S. Senators from Virginia Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, who allot federal funding for oversight efforts through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, called unacceptable.
Beazley has previously told lawmakers the short-staffed OLC is dealing with an overwhelming workload, as the volume of people complaining about nursing home care and conditions has grown significantly year over year.
“That is one of the main reasons causing us to be late on our federal surveys and state licensure inspections— is the number of complaints has skyrocketed," Beazley said during a General Assembly committee meeting earlier this year.
Last week, Shelton presented data to the Joint Commission on Health Care showing OLC had already received more nursing homes complaints so far in 2025 than it did in all of 2024. She also stated that OLC has reduced the average interval between standard nursing home inspections from 37 months to 22 months. The federal requirement is for facilities to be inspected at least once every 16 months.
During that same commission meeting, Senator Head, who runs a home health care business licensed by the OLC, praised Beazley for her ability to manage the office, given the circumstances.
“She has thinned the whitewash about as thin as it can get. She is doing everything she can and doesn’t have enough resources," Head said. "She can't get it done with the resources that we're giving her."
Almost immediately after the leadership change, another OLC leader, Melissa Green — who oversaw the nursing home division — resigned. Green, who has decades of experience operating nursing homes, joined the OLC as the Division of Long Term Care Services Director last year.
In a resignation letter, she called the "recent removal" of Beazley from her position "deplorable."
Green cited “ongoing concerns related to organizational changes” and “an unsustainable workload and inexperienced leadership that will be a detriment to the entire office and progress that has been made the past year.” She added new leadership has caused a “lack of consistent guidance, decision-making transparency, and operational understanding.”
She credited Beazley for multiple accomplishments including implementing a licensure portal, requesting a workforce compensation study resulting in pay increases, and advocating to get legislation passed that will increase licensing fees and help OLC hire more inspectors.
When asked for a response to Green's letter, Reppas declined to comment further, citing personnel information prohibited from disclosure. Meanwhile, an official with Governor Youngkin's administration dismissed the letter as coming from a "disgruntled employee."
Amy Hewett, spokesperson for the Virginia Health Care Association (VHCA), which represents the interests of nursing facilities across the state, said the organization maintains a collaborative relationship with OLC "since an effective survey process is a critical part of ensuring nursing homes are providing high quality care to their residents."
She acknowledged the "struggle" in recent years due to the "significant backlog in standard surveys," but she said VHCA was encouraged by the progress OLC made in reducing the backlog over the past year.
"Leadership changes at OLC raise concerns as the Youngkin administration approaches the end of its term. The loss of institutional knowledge and depth of understanding of the survey process and regulations with the departures of key personnel will almost certainly have a negative impact at a time when substantial progress is still needed. Unfortunately, the Youngkin administration has not taken enough steps to address understaffed and underpaid survey teams," Hewett said in a statement.
Last week, Shelton told lawmakers on the Joint Commission on Health Care that the agency is adjusting salaries, offering aggressive hiring incentives including sign-on bonuses, and a creating a Northern Virginia office in an effort to improve retention and retainment.
Shelton told CBS 6 VDH is taking a more aggressive approach when it comes to holding nursing homes accountable moving forward.
"As we have rebuilt our infrastructure throughout our agency and then begin to tackle each of the problems as they come through, we have had a special focus on our nursing homes," she said.
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