UPDATE Weekly

NCHCFA is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2016 Nurse Aide of the Year Awards and the 2016 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
Elisa Farmer – Skyland Care Center

District II Nurse Aide of the Year
Annie Sam – White Oak Manor / Charlotte

District III Nurse Aide of the Year
Jacob Crawford – The Oaks

District IV Nurse Aide of the Year
Bridget White – Riverpoint Crest Nursing & Rehab Center

District V Nurse Aide of the Year
James White – W. R. Winslow Memorial Home

2016 Riley W. Clapp Outstanding Service Award
Clarence Williams – Golden LivingCenter / Tarboro

Make plans today to attend the 2016 Association Awards Celebration on Tuesday, February 23rd for a very special evening! Brochures outlining specific program details will be available soon.

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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has published its final rule on the Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System. You can access CMS’ fact sheet on the rule here. CMS relaxed some portions of the rule originally proposed earlier this year dictating what admitting physicians must document in order to justify payment as an inpatient. Also of note is CMS’ decision to use Quality Improvement Organizations to conduct initial patient status reviews to determine payment appropriateness under Medicare; these reviews were previously conducted by Recovery Audit Contractors or Medicare Administrative Contractors. The American Hospital Association has praised the finalized changes. To read the full rule, click here. To read a summary of the changes to the two-midnight rule, click here. Please e-mail James Michel with the American Health Care Association with any questions.

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The NCHCFA Annual Convention and Trade Show, The Art of Caring, will be held February 21-24, 2016 at the Sheraton Greensboro Hotel at Four Seasons/Joseph S. Koury Convention Center in Greensboro, NC! Call the Sheraton at (800) 242-6556 to make your room reservation. Identify that you are with “NC Health Care Facilities Association 2016” to receive the group discounted rate. Brochures outlining specific program information will be available in December.

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There is only one week left to submit your Intent to Apply (ITA) for a 2016 Quality Award! Though not mandatory, submitting the intent to apply by 8pm EST November 19th has a number of associated benefits:

• The overall application fee is reduced; and
• Applicants will receive regular emails from Quality Award staff with deadline reminders, tips on applying for the award, and links to exclusive educational webinars.

Applicants who submit an ITA receive a discount off their overall application fee – a $200 savings for Bronze applicants; a $400 savings for Silver; and $550 savings for Gold. The complete awards fee schedule is available.

The AHCA/NCAL National Quality Award Program sets high standards for quality based on the Baldrige Performance Excellence criteria and encourages member providers to commit, achieve and excel in quality performance.

Have questions? Contact the Quality Award staff at qualityaward@ahca.org.

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The Quality Award program has three progressive step levels. This seminar will cover the first level, Bronze – Commitment to Quality. Bronze Award applicants begin their quality journey by developing an organizational profile including vision and mission statements, an awareness of their environment and customers’ expectations, and a demonstration of their ability to improve a process.

This session includes a full day of training and consultation on how to complete the AHCA/NCAL Bronze Quality Award Application led by the Administrator of the Quality Award Program and a trained Quality Award Examiner and award recipient. This training will decipher the criteria, answer questions, clarify concepts, and guide participants through the process of writing an organizational quality award application. Using interactive technology, participants will leave the workshop with their applications complete or with few areas to fill in.

It is never too early to begin thinking about and planning your quality award application. This is an opportunity for you and your team to begin your quality journey by working together through the writing process. Get your application ready early and have plenty of time to fine tune it before the deadline.

For the complete brochure and registration information, click here.

SPACE IS LIMITED TO 22 REGISTRATIONS!

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Alliant Quality wants to encourage SNFs to keep signing up for the National Collaborative – or SPACE. Alliant recommends having as much time as possible to get started on QAPI improvement work and improving facility quality measures in a systems approach to improve their five star and composite scores.

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.

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.

When ready to register, click here for the Participation Agreement and fax or e-mail it back to Lis Klemis. For more details, e-mail Jennifer Brock at, Jennifer.Brock@area-F.hcqis.org or call (678) 527-3417.

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On October 1, CMS opened registration for the voluntary period to participate in electronic submission of payroll data, including staff start and end dates (for calculating staff retention and turnover), and census data. The voluntary period from October 1, 2015 until required submission of this data beginning on July 1, 2016 is the ONLY time that providers will have the opportunity to “test” the process and determine how their payroll system interfaces with the Payroll-Based Journal.

Important information from CMS about the registration process including links for on-line training as well as to other Payroll-Based Journal resources is available on the Staffing Data Collection PBJ Website.

The Affordable Care Act requires CMS to collect electronic staffing data from nursing centers. The Act requires this data to be auditable and verifiable. The information is intended to collect direct care staff (employed and contracted), employee turnover and tenure, and must include census data and case mix. Earlier this year, CMS announced they would require this information to be submitted by all nursing centers starting in July 2016.

When the required submission process begins, CMS will continue to require providers to submit Forms CMS 671 & CMS 672 at the time of survey. The data from these Forms will be used in calculating the Staffing Domain of the Five Star Rating System until late 2017 or early 2018.

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Although the American Health Care Association has had their FY2016 Medicare SNF PPS Rate Calculator out for several months, Palmetto GBA has recently announced the availability of their SNF PPS rate tool. Click here to access the rates for fiscal years 2015 and 2016.

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Learn what it takes to effect real culture change within residential care settings while reducing the administration of psychotropic drugs in the symptomatic treatment of dementia. Dr. G. Allen Power, board-certified internist, geriatrician, nursing home practitioner, and Eden Alternative™ Educator, challenges all care providers working with individuals with dementia to undertake a true operational change. You will learn how to embrace more humanistic, enlightened practices that address the most common challenges in caring for people who live with dementia. Overcome communication challenges, minimize anxiety and depression, root out the causes of wandering, and gain insights into paranoia and delusions.

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

Product # 8249
AHCA Members (on-line price) $32.95

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If you missed the Upcoming Hospice Regulations seminar, the notebook/presentation is now available for purchase. To order, e-mail your request to Donna Snyder at donnas@nchcfa.org. The cost is $25 plus tax and shipping.

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Technology A ‘Use It Or Lose It’ And A ‘Move It Or Lose It’ Proposition, Study Suggests

http://providernation.com/2015/11/10/technology-a-use-it-or-lose-it-and-a-move-it-or-lose-it-proposition-study-suggests/

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Veterans Day was once known as Armistice Day. The term comes from an armistice between Germany and the Allied Nations on November 11, 1918 (Also known the armistice ending on the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day of the eleventh month). World War I actually ended on June 28, 1919, during the Treaty of Versailles. The first Armistice Day was acknowledged on November 11, 1919.

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