UPDATE Weekly

Election of Officers and Members of the Board of Directors will be conducted on Monday, January 29, 2018, during NCHCFA’s Business Meeting. The Business Meeting will be held in conjunction with NCHCFA’s 2018 Annual Convention in Greensboro. All persons seeking an office or a position on the Board of Directors should complete the NCHCFA Board of Directors Application and submit it to the Nominating Committee by November 30, 2017. The NCHCFA Board of Directors Application is new for 2018, and it is being implemented to assist the Nominating Committee in evaluating candidates wishing to run for a seat on the Board of Directors. Please mail or e-mail the completed application to the attention of:

By Mail:
Nominating Committee
North Carolina Health Care Facilities Association
5109 Bur Oak Circle
Raleigh, NC 27612

By E-mail:
Karen Lennon, NCHCFA, KarenL@nchcfa.org

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Effective January 1, 2018, the Medicare Part A daily coinsurance for skilled nursing facility services will be $167.50. Currently the daily coinsurance is $164.50. For more information on the changing coinsurance, as well as the other Part A and Part B deductibles and coinsurance amounts, click here.

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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued MLN Matters article number MM10341 announcing the Medicare Part B outpatient therapy cap values for calendar year (CY) 2018. The annual per-beneficiary benefit limits for physical therapy and speech-language pathology services combined (PT/SLP) is $2,010, while occupational therapy services have a separate $2,010 cap. While there is currently activity in Congress to repeal the therapy caps before the end of the year, there is no guarantee it will occur. Providers should prepare and make sure that your therapy and billing staff are aware of these therapy cap value updates.

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Make plans today to attend the NCHCFA Annual Convention and Expo January 28 – 31, 2018. The meeting will be held at the Sheraton Greensboro Hotel at Four Seasons/Joseph S. Koury Convention Center, Greensboro, NC. You spoke and we listened! Don’t miss the opportunity to welcome back Dr. Dale Henry. Dr. Henry spoke at the 2017 Annual Convention & Expo and was the highest rated overall speaker with a 100% satisfaction rating. Countless members requested that we bring him back. Additional comments about his program include:

“The Sixth Sense was by far one of the best programs I have ever attended. I could have listened to him for hours.”

“Dale Henry was amazing and effective.”

“The Sixth Sense was the absolute best speaker at the entire Convention.“

Dr. Dale Henry grew up in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, an area that is bountiful in two things-hospitality and story-telling. Dr. Dale has been a teacher, principal, Dean of the oldest college in Tennessee, a businessman, author, a speaker and trainer. Dale has been in customer service over half his life. His story-telling ability propelled him as a teacher. This, combined with his customer service and unique ability to captivate audiences, has sky-rocketed Dale in his speaking career. Don’t miss the opportunity to hear his program Going For It On Fourth and One! on Monday, January 29th at 5:00 PM.

To view the tentative agenda click here. Brochures outlining specific program details will be available soon.

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Make your overnight reservation today for the NCHCFA Annual Convention and Expo January 28 – 31, 2018. The meeting will be held at the Sheraton Greensboro Hotel at Four Seasons/Joseph S. Koury Convention Center, Greensboro, NC. Call the Sheraton at (800) 242-6556 and identify that you are with “NC Health Care Facilities Association 2018 Convention” to receive the group discounted rate.

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The AHCA 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. 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.

Objectives:

• Gain knowledge on the AHCA/NCAL Bronze National Quality Award Application Process
• Understand the technical requirements of the application process and recertification policy of the Awards Program
• Review and learn the Bronze Quality Award Criteria
• Develop the framework for a Quality Award Application

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.

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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) 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.

To register, click here for the Participation Agreement and fax or e-mail it back to Lisa Klemis, contact information is on the Participation Agreement. For more details, e-mail Leighann Sauls at Leighann.Sauls@area-F.hcqis.org or call (919) 745-4730.

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Alliant Quality, the Quality Innovation Network-Quality Improvement Organization (QIN-QIO) for North Carolina is seeking central North Carolina skilled nursing facilities interested in collaborating on the Special Innovation Project (SIP) Improving Access to Palliative Care in the Long Term Care Facility.

Palliative care focuses on comfort and improving quality of life. A team of professionals helps residents and families navigate through the health care system and make health care decisions that are right for them. Goals of this project not only include providing quality of life and satisfaction for residents of skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), but also provision of services that minimize risks of potentially avoidable transfers to acute care.

Often, nursing home residents lack advance directives that would assist them at the end of life. When a resident, without an advanced directive, suffers a worsening of their clinical condition, a cascade of care is put into motion and can trigger unwanted emergency room visits and admissions, which can lead to other complications. The provision of palliative care services for SNF residents supports person-directed care in a proactive way to honor the patient and their choices.

Alliant Quality, in partnership with SNFs and palliative care organizations, will develop customized education and learning sessions for SNF leaders to better understand palliative care and its beneficial role for the residents whom they are caring for each day. This educational offering will be pilot-tested in central North Carolina with SNFs who are interested in this Special Innovation Project offered through the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services.

Participating SNFs will have the opportunity to:

• Receive free training programs designed to improve their SNF staff competency and knowledge related to end-of-life care
• Join a learning network with experts on palliative care in the SNF setting
• Partner with palliative care providers in order to improve the quality of life of their residents
• Implement low-burden measurement strategies that monitor resident and family satisfaction with end-of-life care
• Improve rates of avoidable acute care transfers and hospital admission and readmission rates

For more information, contact:
Jennifer Judson RN, BSN
Project Lead, Palliative Care
Office: (678) 527-3473
Jennifer.Judson@alliantquality.org

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For decades, horizontal hostility has been known to play a pivotal role in increasing nursing attrition rates. Team-Building Handbook: Improving Nurse-to-Nurse Relationships offers healthcare organizations a proactive approach to creating a healthy workplace for nursing staff. This small guide provides the core tools they need to build strong teams and avoid the unnecessary expense of finding, hiring, and training new nurses to replace burned-out staff.

This handbook can be used as part of healthcare orientation and precepting programs, as well as for in-services and self-study. Nurses will gain the skills they need to build cohesive teams and combat negativity if it arises in the workplace.

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

Product #8375
AHCA MEMBERS $100.00

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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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Future leaders give the “Silent Generation” a voice in Washington

McKnight’s Article

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A turkey’s wishbone, also called a furcular, is formed by the fusion of the bird’s two collarbones. The bone serves as the connecting point for muscles and a brace for the wings. Researchers have found that the wishbone dates back more than 150 million years to a group of meat-eating dinosaurs that includes T. Rex and Velociraptor.

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