UPDATE Weekly

Register today for the North Carolina Health Care Facilities Association’s “Audit Survival in Long-Term Care/The Roadmap to Success.” This program will provide strategies for managing the people, records, and processes for responding to an auditor’s request for records and appealing denials. The role each person plays during this process includes coordination, preparation, documentation, and tracking. Preventing denials in the first place is part of a comprehensive compliance program as an internal QA function.

Topics include, but not limited to the following:

• Audits impacting nursing homes
• Who may audit you
• How to respond to audit requests
• Appealing audits
• The parts your employees play
• How to reduce/prevent audits

This program will be presented by The Polaris Group on May 28th, 2015 at the Doubletree By Hilton in Greensboro, NC! Online registration is available by logging onto the Association Web site at http://www.NursingHomesNC.com and clicking on “Audit Survival in Long-Term Care/The Roadmap to Success.” Don’t miss it! Space is limited!

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Make plans today to join your colleagues for the fourth annual NCHCFA Summer Symposium. The three-day event will be August 26-28, 2015 at the Embassy Suites Resort at Kingston Plantation, Myrtle Beach, SC. Call the Embassy Suites Resort at (800) 876-0010 to reserve your overnight room. Use group code “HCF” to identify yourself as a NC Health Care Facilities Association Convention attendee! To make your reservation on-line, visit http://tinyurl.com/2015symposiumroomblock.

Please call the Association office at (919) 782-3827 with any questions. Brochures will be mailed to members in June!

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State Plan Amendment (SPA) 14-040 has been approved by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). SPA 14-040 accomplishes two things:

1. Freezes the case-mix index effective January 1, 2015. The case-mix will be frozen using the June 30, 2014 snapshot date information. This is the same CMI used for the October-December 2014 rates.
2. Removes the 3% rate reduction. On January 1, 2014, nursing facility direct and indirect rates were reduced by 3%. SPA 14-040 removes that reduction effective June 1, 2015.

We are working to get additional information on this process, such as when the rates in NCTracks will be updated and when the retroactivity will be applied to paid claims. The official letter of approval can be read by clicking here.

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AHCA’s Legal Committee, along with valuable input from the Survey & Regulatory Committee, has developed a Webinar and guidance document, sharing its collective thoughts regarding confidentiality under the Quality Assessment and Assurance (QAA) privilege. You can register for the Webinar and obtain the guidance document at http://webinars.ahcancal.org/session.php?id=16260. This is an archived Webinar for AHCA members at no charge.

Learning objectives for the Webinar include:

1. Review the Quality Assessment and Assurance (QAA) privilege law;
2. Understand the practical process for protecting facility documents;
3. Learn how the QAA privilege intersects with Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement (QAPI); and
4. Discuss categorized documents and whether or not the QAA privilege applies in specific instances.

Note from AHCA: The document is not intended to be exhaustive, and individual facilities may have significant variances in levels or process that trigger the QAA privilege.

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We are excited about the number of nursing homes that have decided to participate in the Alliant Quality National Nursing Home Quality Care Collaborative (NNHQCC). Alliant Quality would like to invite each of you to attend a brief (30-minute) SPACE- Kick-Off Session in June. If you have not already completed a participation agreement and do not want to be left out, please complete the agreement and return to nancy.fendler@alliantquality.org.

There are four opportunities, please click on the dates below to register.

Wednesday, June 3, 2015:

• Quality Net Meeting Invite Participant June 3, 10:00 AM-10:30 AM
• Quality Net Meeting Invite Participant June 3, 2:00 PM-2:30 PM

Thursday, June 4, 2015:

• Quality Net Meeting Invite Participant June 4, 10:00 AM- 10:30 AM
• Quality Net Meeting Invite Participant June 4, 2:00 PM-2:30 PM

ABOUT ALLIANT QUALITY
Alliant Quality is the Medicare Quality Innovation Network (QIN)-Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) for North Carolina. Under contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Alliant Quality invites your nursing home to participate in a collaborative designed to ensure that every nursing home resident receives the highest quality of care. Specifically, the Nursing Home Quality Care Collaborative (NNHQCC) will strive to instill quality and performance improvement practices, eliminate healthcare acquired conditions, and dramatically improve resident satisfaction.

The Collaborative offers an exciting opportunity to learn from high performing nursing homes regarding their processes as they pertain to consistent/permanent staff assignment, teamwork and communications, leadership, regulatory compliance, clinical models, and quality of life indicators. The Collaborative aligns national nursing home quality initiatives and partnerships such as the Advancing Excellence in America’s Nursing Homes Campaign, The Partnership to Improve Dementia Care, and Quality Assurance Performance Improvement (QAPI). Targeted focus areas will include increasing mobility, decreasing unnecessary use of antipsychotics in residents with dementia, decreasing potentially avoidable hospitalizations and decreasing healthcare acquired infections and conditions.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND
Participants in the Alliant Quality National Nursing Home Quality Care Collaborative (NNHQCC) ~ Southern Partners Action Collaborative for Excellence (SPACE)

If you are ready to register, click here for the Participation Agreement and fax or e-mail it back to Nancy Fendler. For more details, e-mail Nancy at nancy.fendler@alliantquality.org or reach out to her at (678) 527-3679.

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This book will show you the true financial consequences of unchecked resident readmission and provide you with the tools to do something about it! It delivers several practical strategies your facility can employ, such as enhanced resident assessment and documentation policies, provider partnerships that improve transitions of care, staff education tools, and methods to achieve resident and staff involvement. You will learn how to ensure smooth care transitions through resident education and effective communication with staff and other care providers, reduce costs associated with re-hospitalizations and maintain or improve the resident’s quality of life.

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

Product #8238
AHCA MEMBERS $129.00

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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, e-mail your request to Amy Suggs at amys@nchcfa.org. The price is $35.00 (tax and shipping included).

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Important For Caregivers To Share The Mission – Senior leaders must lead and guide their organizations, including setting a clear direction consistent with their mission.

http://www.providermagazine.com/archives/2015_Archives/Pages/0415/It%E2%80%99s-Important-For-Caregivers-To-Share-The-Mission.aspx

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About 5,000 people attend the annual Memorial Day celebration at Arlington Cemetery, about the same as at the first celebration in 1868.

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