UPDATE Weekly

On November 16th, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the final rule for the Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement (CJR, formerly known as CCJR) payment model. Under CJR, participation will be mandatory in 67 geographic areas. Any nursing facility that accepts patients discharged from any hospital in the mandatory areas under DRG 469 or DRG 470 are included in this payment model. The areas in North Carolina included in the payment model are:

• Asheville, NC
• Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC
• Durham-Chapel Hill, NC
• Greenville, NC

The American Health Care Association (AHCA) has prepared a comprehensive summary of the final rule. In addition to a concise summary of the rule, there are external links included for additional information. Click here to read the AHCA summary.

To access an Excel list of the included hospitals, click here.

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The NCHCFA Annual Convention and Trade Show will be held February 21-24, 2016 at the Sheraton Greensboro Hotel at Four Seasons/Joseph S. Koury Convention Center in Greensboro, NC! Chair Kevin Cox and the NCHCFA Board of Directors invite you to West 54th Street in Manhattan for a night of fun at “Studio 54”. Join your colleagues for a night of glitz and glamour at the legendary New York nightclub that defined the disco era. It was “the place” for the rich and famous to be seen in the late 1970’s! There will be plenty of “Pop Art”, food, and entertainment by the band Liquid Pleasure.

Disco anyone? Pull out your bell-bottoms and get ready for three straight hours of mesmerizing choreography! For more than two decades Liquid Pleasure has been bringing audiences to their feet. The Liquid Pleasure Super Show includes its six amazing original band members, three additional female vocalists, and an entire horn section. The band will play all the greatest tunes from your favorite decade.

Come dressed as one of the regulars from Studio 54’s past such as Andy Warhol, Cher, Mick Jagger, Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, or Elizabeth Taylor. A photographer will be on hand and great prizes will be awarded for the best dressed male and female. Heavy hors d’oeuvres will be served. Register today so the doormen will let you past the legendary velvet ropes! Registration materials will be available soon!

Reminder, call the Sheraton at (800) 242-6556 to make your room reservation. Identify that you are with “NC Health Care Facilities Association 2016 Convention” to receive the group discounted rate.

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Due to a low number of registrants, NCHCFA has decided to cancel the AHCA Bronze Quality Award workshop that was scheduled for tomorrow, December 3rd. We plan to schedule another in the spring of 2016 and will keep you informed when a date, time and location have been confirmed.

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Join the CMS National Training Program on December 3, 2015 1:00 – 3:00 pm ET as they provide a basic overview of the Medicare program. This Webinar is designed for new individuals who counsel people with Medicare and for individuals requiring a refresher. It provides basic information about the following:

• Part A (Hospital Insurance)
• Part B (Medical Insurance)
• Part C (Medicare Advantage Plans)
• Part D (Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage),
• Programs to help people with limited income and resources
• Where to find the answers to your program questions

To register, go to https://goto.webcasts.com/starthere.jsp?ei=1074434. The audio portion of the Webinar will be delivered via your computer. Please check your computer settings in advance to ensure that your speaker volume is adjusted appropriately.

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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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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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If you missed 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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‘Sundowning’: Why Hospital Staffs Dread Nightfall, And How To Help Seniors Avoid It

http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2015/11/sundowning-seniors-nightfall-delirium

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The architecture of the USS Arizona Memorial represents “initial defeat and ultimate victory.” The architect, Alfred Preis, explains the design of the 65-meter-long (184ft) Memorial “enclosed bridge” that spans the hull of the ship: “Wherein the structure sags in the center but stands strong and vigorous at the ends, expresses initial defeat and ultimate victory.”

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