UPDATE Weekly

The NC Health Care Facilities Association will be hosting a seminar on UPCOMING HOSPICE REGULATIONS. This seminar will be presented by Cindy DePorter, MSSW, Assistant Section Chief, Acute and Home Care and Quality Evaluative Systems, Nursing Home Licensure and Certification, DHSR. There are new hospice regulations and a new tag added. Nursing homes can be cited if their contract with hospice does not have certain components (e.g., a written communication log with hospice.) Ms. DePorter will review the upcoming new regulation and interpretative guidance for hospice in nursing homes and review the regulatory expectations of the relationship between hospice and nursing homes.

You may register on-line at http://www.NursingHomesNC.com and click on UPCOMING HOSPICE REGULATIONS! Members can be invoiced. Non-members need to pay at time of registration. There is a room block at the Sheraton Greensboro if overnight rooms are needed. Identify yourself as being with the group, NC Facilities Health Care Association, to receive our special group rate!

November 12, 2014
Sheraton Greensboro
3121 High Point Road
Greensboro, NC 27407
(800) 242-6556

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NCHCFA received numerous requests to start the Annual Summer Symposium on Wednesday and end on Friday (versus 2014 schedule Tuesday-Thursday). The Kingston Plantation is able to accommodate this request for 2015! Please note the new date for the Fourth Annual NCHCFA Summer Symposium will be August 26-28, 2015 at the Embassy Suites Resort at Kingston Plantation, Myrtle Beach, SC.

The Education and Programs Committee needs your feedback to better plan for 2015. Tomorrow, all NCHCFA members will receive a very brief survey by e-mail regarding overnight requests for the 2015 Annual Summer Symposium. It is very important that we have full participation so that we can contract the appropriate number/type of rooms for 2015 in Myrtle Beach, SC! Thank you in advance for your time!

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You already know that LTC Trend Tracker pulls all the data CMS collects on skilled nursing centers. But what you may not know is that it also includes additional data you can’t find anywhere else.

Like the rehospitalization measure, developed by PointRight®. With PointRight® Pro 30™, you can find out your 30-day, risk-adjusted hospital readmission rates within 4 to 6 months of submitting your information to CMS. This is the much faster than using claims data to follow your center’s readmissions. LEARN MORE

LTC Trend Tracker also has a discharge to community measure. Based on MDS 3.0 data, this measure determines the percentage of all new admissions from a hospital who are discharged back to the community (non-clinical settings) and remain out of any skilled nursing center for the next 30 days. It can also tell you if you are sending as many individuals back to the community as expected, given the clinical characteristics of the patients admitted to your center. LEARN MORE

With these two exclusive measures, LTC Trend Tracker is once again striving to be your quality and performance solution.

Monitor your readmission rates to meet the goal of the AHCA Quality Initiative and prepare for government programs that will track readmissions among SNFs. Learn your discharge to community rates to help you in your negotiations with hospitals, Managed Care organizations, and more.

Explore your readmission and discharge to community rates now!

Click here to Login

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Effective January 1, 2105, for Medicare beneficiaries in skilled nursing facilities, the daily co-insurance for days 21 through 100 in a benefit period will be $157.50 in 2015, compared to $152.00 in 2014.

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The “Updated LEIE” database file reflects all OIG exclusion and reinstatement actions up to, and including, those taken in September 2014. This new, “Updated LEIE” (List of Excluded Individuals and Entities) is a complete database file containing all exclusions currently in effect. Individuals and entities that have been reinstated to the federal health care programs are not included in this file.

All the updated files are posted at http://oig.hhs.gov/exclusions/exclusions_list.asp.

Instructional videos explaining how to use the online database and the downloadable files are available:

• On-line Database Video: http://oig.hhs.gov/exclusions/online.asp
• Downloadable Database Video: http://oig.hhs.gov/exclusions/download.asp

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The brochure for potential trade associate members and exhibitors at EXPO 2015 will be available next week. Do you have a favorite supplier you think might be interested in participating? If so, now is the time to have them contact Jan Williams at janw@nchcfa.org or by phone at (919) 782-3827 to get on the mailing list. The trade show will be held on Tuesday, February 17th during our Annual Convention and Expo in Greensboro, NC.

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The NCHCFA Annual Convention and Trade Show will be held February 15-18, 2015 at the Sheraton Four Seasons Hotel/Koury Convention Center in Greensboro, NC! Brochures outlining specific program information will be mailed in December.

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This book provides the theory, principles, methods, and tools for the nurse manager or leader of a long term care facility. It contains more than 150 guidelines, flow sheets, communication, assessment, and feedback procedures that can be implemented with little or no modification by directors of nursing in every type of long term care facility.

To order, visit http://www.AHCApublications.org or call (800) 321-0343.

Product #6746
AHCA MEMBERS $84.95

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This DVD, 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, 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 accompany each video and may be reproduced. To order, contact Jan Williams at janw@nchcfa.org.

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

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114-year-old woman had to fake her age to get on Facebook

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/14/tech/social-media/facebook-114-year-old-woman/index.html

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“Sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia” is the scientific term for brain freeze.

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