UPDATE Weekly

Congressman G.K. Butterfield (NC-01) toured Golden Living Center – Tarboro on Tuesday, November 24, along with representatives of NCHCFA and AHCA. The visit allowed the Congressman to see first-hand the care skilled nursing facilities provide to residents and to discuss issues facing the long-term care industry.

Mrs. Effie Webb, Executive Director, spoke to the Congressman about the history of skilled nursing and the unique challenges faced by skilled nursing facilities in today’s regulatory and financial climates. She also explained the history of the building and the steps the facility has taken to embrace quality improvement and provide resident focused care. Mrs. Webb added, “We are proud to have Congressman Butterfield join Golden Living – Tarboro on a facility tour. This experience is an opportunity to showcase the importance of the high quality skilled care that nursing facilities provide to today’s residents, those who require high acuity, medical attention.”

Congressional visits have been ongoing throughout the years, as they are an effective way to demonstrate the high quality, cost-effective and preferred care that North Carolina skilled nursing facilities provide. Congressman Mark Walker (NC-06) is expected to tour Clapp’s Nursing Center in January 2016. If you are interested in hosting a facility tour, please contact Adam Sholar, adams@nchcfa.org or Eric Kivisto, Erick@nchcfa.org.

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A revised Skilled Nursing Facility Prospective Payment System Booklet is available. Learn how facilities are paid for Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF) services, including:

• Elements of the SNF Prospective Payment System
• SNF Quality Reporting Program
• SNF Value-Based Purchasing Program

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NCTracks has created a Job Aid to assist providers with the re-credentialing process. Providers must complete the re-credential/re-verification process every five years to ensure that provider information is accurate and current. As part of this process, the provider’s credentials and qualifications will be evaluated to ensure they meet the professional requirements and are in good standing. The re-credentialing process also includes a criminal background check on all owners and managing relationships associated with the provider record.

Providers will receive a re-credentialing/re-verification letter, or an invitation via their NCTracks secure portal inbox or e-mail, when they are scheduled to begin the re-credentialing process.

As noted in the Job Aid, the re-credentialing due date can be found in the Status and Management section of the secure provider portal 45 days before re-credentialing is due. The Job Aid includes screen shots to make it easy to find the due date on the portal. This Job Aid is a subset of a more comprehensive Re-Credentialing Job Aid PRV573, which is available to providers in SkillPort, the NCTracks Learning Management System. More information can also be found on the new Re-Credentailing Web page on the NCTracks Web site at https://www.nctracks.nc.gov/content/public/providers/provider-recredentialing.html.

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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 it 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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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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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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This book covers 28 challenging cases that cover pivotal issues that most health care administrators and managers are likely to encounter at some point in their work – quality improvement, strategic planning, ethical dilemmas, organizational dynamics, cost-benefit analyses, resource utilization, and more. Providing an exceptional framework for decision-making and debate, Cases in Health Services Management is an outstanding casebook that provokes thought and discussion.

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

Product # 8248
AHCA Members (on-line price) $64.95

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Important information for residents and families… This brochure outlines what physical restraints are, when they should be used, rules and regulations concerning restraints, and making decisions about using them. To order, e-mail your request to Donna Snyder at donnas@nchcfa.org.

• NCHCFA Member: $30.00 per 100 brochures plus tax and shipping
• Non-Members: $60.00 per 100 brochures plus tax and shipping

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The Broadband Bill You Should Know About

Last week, a bill entitled the “Rural Healthcare Connectivity Act of 2015” cleared the Senate Commerce committee without amendment.

In Washingtonese, the bill amends the 1934 Communications Act to allow skilled nursing centers to request, under the Universal Service Fund, “necessary telecommunications and information services to serve persons who reside in rural areas at rates that are reasonably comparable to rates charged for similar services in urban areas.”

In plain language, the bill offers tens of millions of dollars in subsidies so that care centers can get hooked up to high-speed broadband.

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Sarah Josepha Hale (1788-1879), who tirelessly worked to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday, also was the first person to advocate women as teachers in public schools, the first to advocate day nurseries to assist working mothers, and the first to propose public playgrounds. She was also the author of two dozen books and hundreds of poems, including “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

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