UPDATE Weekly

Not for Profit organizations, especially trade associations, rely heavily on the volunteer time of its membership. One important way to make a difference is by serving on one of NCHCFA’s committees. Members have until April 15th to volunteer to serve on one of the following committees: Standards and Ethics, Provider Relations, Education and Programs, Quality Advisory, and Payment for Services. Click here [Word] [PDF] for a description of the committees. Click here [Word] [PDF] to download form and print. Click here to access the on-line entry version.

All committee assignments are for a two-year term beginning at the time of appointment and ending February 28, 2018. Appointments are made by the Chair of NCHCFA’s Board of Directors. Only representatives from member facilities in good standing are eligible to serve. Please note that all committee meetings will be conducted by conference call (excluding Education and Programs) unless circumstances arise that require an in-person meeting. When submitting your request, please choose more than one committee and rank selections in order of preference.

Members currently on committees will need to go through the sign-up process.

If you volunteer to serve on a committee, please make the commitment to participate. We promise to be respectful of your time and busy schedules. If you submitted this form during convention, we ask that you please complete and turn in again.

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The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has produced a draft Medicaid reform plan, also known as a Section 1115 demonstration waiver application, and is seeking public comment about it now through April 18, 2016. DHHS says it will use public input to prepare the final waiver application that it will submit to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for review.

DHHS is accepting feedback at a series of public hearings across the state. Hearings will begin March 30 in Raleigh and end April 18 in Pembroke. A schedule of hearings, locations and times is available at http://www.ncdhhs.gov/nc-medicaid-reform/public-hearings.

DHHS has a comprehensive Web site containing Medicaid reform information. The Web site also allows for the submission of written comments. For more details, and to submit a comment online, go to http://www.ncdhhs.gov/nc-medicaid-reform/share-comments.

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Medicaid rates effective April 1, 2016 will reflect several changes.

1. For Fair Rental Value (FRV), facilities are aged an additional year (not to exceed the maximum age of 32.5 years) and facility improvements submitted on the Capital Data Survey for 2015 are reflected in the rates.
2. The patient days used in the rate model have been updated. The rates through March 31 used patient days from the 2011 cost reports. The rates effective April 1 will use the patient days from the 2014 cost reports. These days are used in the calculation of the FRV rates as well as determining the provider assessment rate paid by providers (see below). This change in patient days should have minimal impact on the FRV rate for most nursing facilities.
3. The rate of the provider assessment paid by a nursing facility is determined by their nursing days. If a facility has more than 48,000 nursing days, they pay a rate of $7.18 per non-Medicare day. If a nursing facility has 48,000 nursing days or fewer, they pay a rate of $13.68. When the days in the rate model were updated from the 2011 days to the 2014 days, several nursing homes went from one rate to the other. If you notice a significant change in your April 1 Medicaid rate, compare the amount of the provider assessment to prior periods. For example, if a provider was paying the provider assessment at the $13.68 rate, but an increase in their nursing days moved them to the $7.18 rate, they will see a decrease of $6.50 in their rate because of this. This provider will only pay $7.18 per non-Medicare resident day for the next year, not the $13.68 they were paying prior to April 1.

If you have any questions on your rate changes, please contact Sam Clark at samc@nchcfa.org or (919) 782-3827.

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The Winston-Salem Journal reported on Monday that Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and United Healthcare formed an accountable care organization (ACO). According to the Journal, “The insurer has similar ACO arrangements with Cornerstone, Eagle Physicians and Associates, Guilford Medical Associates, Novant Health Inc. and Triad HealthCare Network. All state residents enrolled in United Healthcare’s Medicare Advantage plans are eligible to benefit from this collaboration. More than 25,000 members access Wake Forest Baptist’s services each year.”

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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 Quality Assurance Performance Improvement (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 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 Lisa 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 March 3, CMS announced the addition of new quality measures (QMs) to Nursing Home Compare (NHC) and the Five-Star Quality Rating System. The new measures are a part of the agency’s effort to track and encourage improvements in skilled nursing care centers for short-stay and long-stay patients and residents. These new additions also build on what CMS announced in February of 2015.

There are six new measures: four short-stay and two long-stay. The new short-stay measures are discharge back to the community, emergency room use, rehospitalizations, and improvement in function. Three of the four are aligned with the AHCA Quality Initiative. The new long-stay measures are decline in mobility and the use of hypnotics/anxiolytics.

What does this mean for American Health Care Association (AHCA) member centers? By the end of April, all six of the new measures will be added to NHC and accessible to the public. And in July, all but one measure – hypnotics/anxiolytics – will be added to Five-Star. CMS has not yet announced how the new QMs will impact the overall star rating.

AHCA hosted a Webinar for members on March 4 that walked through these new updates in greater detail. The recorded presentation, along with more specifics on the new measures, are available only to members on the Five-Star ahcancalED page here.

What can members do over the next few weeks to prepare for the addition of the new measures in April and in July?

1. Register for free to access members-only Five-Star resources on ahcancalED. Current resources include the March 4th AHCA Webinar, the questions and answers from that Webinar, and specifics on the new measurements. To access the resources on the site, you must 1) log in using your AHCA username and password and 2) register to download the Five-Star materials. Contact educate@ahca.org if you need any assistance.
2. Watch AHCA’s Webinar from March 4 if you have not already done so. Consider holding an all-staff meeting to watch the Webinar together.
3. Be sure your MDS coordinator is aware of the new updates. She/he will be able to access the QIES System one week before the new measures are added to NHC in April.
4. Start counting and tracking the number of residents and patients who are experiencing each of the QMs (e.g., discharge back to the community, emergency room use, rehospitalizations) by using Advancing Excellence’s free tracking tools.
5. Review and familiarize yourself with the specifics of the new measures. And don’t forget to include your staff in this process.
6. Go to AHCA’s LTC Trend Tracker(SM), a free, members-only online tool, to run your Discharge to Community and Hospitalization Rate reports. Once you have your report, look to see if you are above or below the national average to get a sense of how you are doing. Based on what you learn, set a goal to perform at least two-three points better than the average. Contact help@ltctrendtracker.com if you need any assistance.
7. Visit the AHCA Quality Initiative Website to access additional resources to improve your discharges back to the community and reduce hospital readmissions.
8. Stay tuned. AHCA will inform members of any new updates over the next few weeks.

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With recent media and congressional attention being paid to instances of social media abuse of nursing residents, Sen. Grassley Calls For Action On Social Media Abuse Of Nursing Home Residents, https://www.propublica.org/article/another-senator-calls-for-action-social-media-abuse-nursing-home-residents, we wanted to remind you about the North Carolina Board of Nursing’s article on Social Networking and Nurses.

The purpose of this article was to provide information about social networking as related to nursing practice, and enhance nurse’s knowledge and application of social networking. The article highlights that the use of social networking can have numerous benefits but also unintended consequences for an individual nurse’s career.

The article offers advice on how to avoid problems with social media use in health care settings and notes that practitioners should not take photos or videos of residents or patients on personal devices, including cell phones and that patient-related images should not be transmitted by way of any electronic media.

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The Payroll Based Journal (PBJ) requirement is fast approaching. The American Health Care Association (AHCA) strongly encourages all members to take the first step to success with this requirement by registering as soon as possible. This PDF document provides training links, instructions, and tips you can use when submitting your registration.

Stay tuned for continuous updates and resources on how your company can be successfully compliant with this Requirement of Participation.

Remember: Don’t delay, REGISTER today!

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National Nursing Home Week® is May 8-14, 2016! AHCA’s 2016 National Nursing Home Week® (NNHW) specialty products are now available for purchase. This year’s theme with logo, It’s a Small World with a Big Heart, is featured on many of the available items. To purchase National Nursing Home week specialty products including posters, balloons, t-shirts, buttons, and more, shop on-line or call 800-321-0343.

Members are encouraged to place orders early for best product selection (color, size, and available quantities). NNHW items are very popular and will sell out. Ask about t-shirt discounts when ordering.

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Developed to fill a widely-recognized gap in management and leadership skills needed to improve the quality of long term care, this resource is based around learning modules that were site-tested in three types of long term care settings and revised based on the resulting feedback.

To order, visit http://www.AHCApublications.org or call (800) 321-0343. Fax orders may also be placed at (800) 869-5605.

Product #8398
AHCA MEMBERS $85.00

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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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Developing and Sustaining High-Performance Work Teams

https://www.shrm.org/templatestools/toolkits/pages/developingandsustaininghigh-performanceworkteams.aspx#sthash.Nz3cFOTe.dpuf

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Over the last 150 years the average height of people in industrialized nations has increased about 4 inches.

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