UPDATE Weekly

NCHCFA is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2014 Nurse Aide of the Year Awards and the 2014 Riley W. Clapp Outstanding Service Award! Individuals will be recognized in Greensboro, NC during the Annual Convention and Expo.

District I Nurse Aide of the Year
Garnet McMillan – Macon Valley Nursing and Rehab Center

District II Nurse Aide of the Year
Rovonda Campbell – Hunter Woods Healthcare

District III Nurse Aide of the Year
Veronica Cheek – Universal Health Care / Ramseur

District IV Nurse Aide of the Year
Cathy Smith – Golden Years Nursing Home

District V Nurse Aide of the Year
Sidney Richardson – South Village

2014 Riley W. Clapp Outstanding Service Award
Delores Jones – Skyland Care Center

Make plans today to attend the 2014 Association Awards Celebration Going for the Gold, on Tuesday, February 25th for a very special evening with Olympic Gold Medalist, Dan Jansen! Brochures outlining specific program details will be available soon.

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The Round 1 Rebid of the Medicare Durable Medical Equipment, Prosthetics, Orthotics, and Supplies (DMEPOS) Competitive Bidding Program was implemented in nine areas (including the Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill area) on January 1, 2011. CMS is required by law to recompete contracts under the DMEPOS Competitive Bidding Program at least once every three years. The Round 1 rebid contracts will expire on December 31, 2013. The Round 1 recompete contracts and prices are scheduled to go into effect on January 1, 2014 in the same nine areas. There will also be some changes to the specific DMEPOS items that are part of the program in these areas starting on January 1, 2014.

When a round of the program goes into effect in a competitive bidding area (CBA), original Medicare beneficiaries who obtain competitively bid items in that CBA will need to use a Medicare contract supplier for that round for Medicare to help pay unless an exception applies. It is important that prescribing physicians, social workers, discharge planners, and others who assist Medicare beneficiaries in Round 1 competitive bid areas with their health care needs and decisions understand this program so that they can help Medicare patients get covered medical equipment and supplies.

CMS has scheduled several Webinars about the scheduled recompetition. This program is intended for partners and providers who assist beneficiaries in obtaining and ordering items of DMEPOS. Each program is limited to 1,000 participants, so please register early. Additionally, please try to limit your registration to 1 event if possible. CMS has scheduled 3 Webinars in order to accommodate everyone and will add additional Webinars if they reach their maximum attendance.

This Webinar will be presented in a lecture format only. Questions may be asked using the Webinar chat feature but will not be answered live. All questions will be compiled into a Question and Answer document and distributed to all Webinar participants. The Webinars will be conducted on the following dates:

• December 09, 2013 (11:00 am to 12:00 noon (EST))
• December 11, 2013 (1:00 pm to 4:00 pm (EST))
• December 12, 2013 (2:00 pm to 3:00 pm (EST))

You may sign up for one of the Webinars at http://dmeposcb2013.eventbrite.com.

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The next CMS Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNF)/Long Term Care (LTC) Open Door Forum is scheduled for Thursday, December 5, 2013 at 2:00 PM ET.

Planned Agenda:
I. Opening Remarks
II. Announcements & Updates
• Medicare Announcement
• JIMMO Announcement
• National Partnership to Improve Dementia Care in Nursing Homes
• MDS Training
• Questions from previous SNF/LTC ODF
III. Open Q&A

To participate on the call, dial (800) 837-1935 and reference Conference ID 14947458.

Encore is an audio recording of this call that can be accessed by dialing (855) 859-2056 and entering the Conference ID. Encores for ODFs held on Thursdays can be accessed the following Monday. The recording is available for 3 business days.

For ODF schedule updates and E-Mailing List registration, visit the CMS Web site at http://www.cms.gov/OpenDoorForums.

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Start improving your community reputation, marketability, and profitability today with Hospitality for Boomers: How to attract residents, retain staff, and maximize profitability. Written by former restaurateur, health-care food service director, and current national Kind Dining® service trainer, Cindy Heilman, this quick read shares a unique service perspective and is full of hospitality tips. Please visit http://www.AHCApublications.org or call (800) 321-0343 to order this product.

Learn how to:

• Respect your diner’s experience
• Train your staff to excel
• Apply empathy daily
• Exceed your residents’ expectations
• Build your hospitality team
• Grow your employees personally and professionally
• Focus your leadership team
• And more!

Product #: 8274
Price: $19.95

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NCHCFA is excited to offer this remake of our most popular educational tool, Mobility and Safe Movement of the Elderly, Improving Your Skills to Prevent Injuries and Reduce Falls, by Teepa Snow, MS, OTR/L., FOTA, Dementia Care & Training Specialist. This DVD was developed in conjunction with Wake Allied Health Education Center, Durham Technical Community College and the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Office of Information Systems. The content is formatted in separate segments in order to customize the delivery of content to your learning objective. Handouts developed by Teepa may be reproduced and accompany each video. To order, contact Jan Williams at janw@nchcfa.org.

The price is $35.00 (tax and shipping included).

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The amazing way this hospital is fighting physician burnout.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/02/the-amazing-way-this-hosp_n_4337849.html

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On December 1, 1955 Rosa Parks refused to give her bus seat to a white man. Her arrest prompted a year-long city bus boycott and led to the ruling that bus segregation was unconstitutional.

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