59th Annual Convention and Trade Show
Early Registration Ends Friday, September 25th

It’s KHCA/KCAL Convention Time!!

Trekking Toward Quality will be out of this world! 

The Tradeshow is sold out!

The PAC Texas Hold ‘em Tournament and Casino Night will be talked about for years. Click here for information about the PAC event.  The dinner theater is going to be a hoot. Now all we need is you! Click here for a convention brochure and registration. What to save some money? Register on-line and receive instant discounts for your facility. Questions? Call us at KHCA/KCAL.

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  Brookside Retirement Community--Overbrook
PEAK AWARD WInner

September 10th, 2009, Governor Mark Parkinson and the Kansas Department on Aging honored the 2009 PEAK Award Winners.  Kansas Health Care Association is honored to have Scott Averill and Brookside Retirement Community be awarded for the second year in a row.  Congratulations to Scott, Denise and the team at Brookside Retirement.

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  State Agencies Back Off SEIU Request

SRS and KDOA has decided they will not be compiling the information originally requested  on behalf of the Service Employee International Union.  Steve Mock in Secretary Jordan's office stated in an email, "SRS believes that the exemption to KORA listed at 45-221(a)(30) governs the information we requested and therefore will not be distributed.  This provision will be cited to SEIU and a journalist who had requested the information."

Copy of the letter

Copy of the KORA statute 

Please keep us posted if you see any activity that does not seem normal either with your home or your workers.  We believe the SEIU will make other attempts in reaching out on behalf of their organizing efforts. 

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  H1N1

As of September 9th, there had been confirmed cases of H1Ni in 53 Kansas Counties. Median age of laboratory-confirmed cases was 16 years.  12% of those confirmed required hospitalization.  Less than 1% of cases were in persons aged 65+.  The FDA just approved the vaccine, which will be available by mid-October. 
 
KHCA members are strongly encouraged to: 1) remain in close contact with their local health departments, 2) conduct seasonal flu vaccination programs as early as possible, 3) redouble efforts aimed at vaccinating staff, 4) conduct in-services for all staff on H1N1, and 5) institute seasonal flu precautions as soon as possible. 
 
Visit www.kdheks.gov and click on the "H1N1 - 1 Bad Bug" icon to view weekly status reports and for more information and links. There is an excellent powerpoint presentation suitable for staff and community education under the "General Info on H1N1 Virus" section near the bottom of the page.  
 
For Medicare H1N1 vaccine billing information go to www.cms.gov/MLNMattersArticles/downloads/SE0920.pdf
 

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  Nursing Facility Advisory Group Notes

The following are notes from the Nursing Facility Advisory Group meeting. Vera VanBruggen reported the west survey team will be trained on the QIS and then the entire state will be fully QIS.  The only other state is Conneticut to be fully QIS.

Amanda Barta reported changes to  the Primary Diagnosis Code Requirement.  Effective November 10th, 2009, providers willl be required to enter a primary diagnosis code in Field 67 of the UB-04 claims form.  The diagnosis code must be valid and active.  If this field is not completed correctly, the claim will be denied.  The timeline is as follows; beginning October 13th an informational EOB will be applied to for LTC claims tht do not have a primary diagnosis code.  On November 10th the informational EOB will be removed from the edit and claims will begin to be denied when a primary diagnosis code is not entered.. If you have questions, please do not hesitate to contact amanda.barta@aging.ks.gov

Vera also reported on the infection control tag F441.  Tags F442,443,444, and 445 are deleted and regulatory guidance is moved to F441.  This is effective September 30,2009.  Click here to read the guidance  We will post the final copy of the guidance on the members section.  www.khca.org   Vera also wanted us to remind providers that there is no change on the MDS concerning therapy.  There is confusion about the changes that will take effective October 2010.  More on this later.

KDOA will start taking Peak Award applications in October through December.  We have so many homes that would qualify for the PEAK Awards so please consider taking the time to apply.  ask Scott Averill! or Jon Covault!

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  Medicare News
from the BKD newsletter

October 1, 2009
•The net impact of overall changes in rates is a 1.1% reduction in Medicare skilled nursing facility payments or $360 million compared to FY 2009, comprised of the following: 

◦Recalibration adjustment to correct overpayments CMS believes resulted from the implementation of the resources utilization group (RUG 53) system and nine new RUG categories (rehab + extensive), which became effective January 1, 2006.  The impact of this change is a reduction of total payments to nursing facilities of $1.05 billion, or 3.3%
◦Full market basket increase of 2.2%.  This adjustment represents a $690 million increase in aggregate SNF payments
•The 128% add-on for SNF patients with acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) remains in effect
•Core-based Statistical Area (CBSA) hospital wage index values will continue to be used in the calculation of the rates

October 1, 2010 --THESE DO NOT TAKE EFFECT UNTIL 2010
•A new resource utilization-based SNF prospective classification system (RUG-IV), along with the updated Minimum Data Set (MDS) 3.0, will be used for payment purposes.  Although the impact of these changes is intended to be budget neutral, there will be a significant change in the distribution of payments across a new 66-RUG category system

•PPS hospitals operating swing bed programs will be required to complete a shorter version of the MDS 3.0 excluding clinical items not required for payment or quality measurement

•CMS will allocate resident therapy minutes between patients served during concurrent therapy sessions, as well as limit the number of patients participating in concurrent therapy sessions to two.

•Revisions will be made to the RUG-IV ADL Index

•CMS will modify the look-back period for coding special treatments and procedures on the MDS to include only those services provided after admission (or readmission) to the SNF for payment purposes.  Treatments and procedures provided in the acute care setting will no longer qualify a patient for extensive services RUG categories.  Some of the current qualifiers for the extensive services category will change

•The timeframe for completing an Other Medicare Required Assessment (OMRA) will be reduced to one to three days after treatment ceases

•CMS is proposing changes to transmission of MDS data, including reducing the timeframe for transmission from 31 days to 14 days

•CMS is proposing to modify the use of Resident Assessment Protocols (RAPs)

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  Are Your Stars in Alignment? CMS 671 and 672 Data Accuracy and Their Role in Five-Star Quality Rating Sytem

AHCA recently held a webinar to provide helpful information on ensuring the accuracy of the data which contributes to the Five-Star calculation for staffing.  Go to the website above to review this information.  The information can be found on www.ahca.org in the Quality Improvement section in the members area.

http://www.ahcancal.org/events/calendar/FiveStarQualityRatingSystem/default.aspx?InstanceID=1 

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  KDOA Incentives

Last week KDOA and BKD presented information to about 50 providers about the FY 2010  reimbursement program.  After further review of cost reports of many providers, there are still many who are not taking advantage of the $.15 for the culture change survey.  Providers can fill out the survey anytime and deliver to KDOA and receive $.15.  It might not seem like very much but in this day, everything counts.

Go to the website below to find the survey.

http://www.nursingoutcomes.org/documents/KCCILeaderVersion_000.pdf

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  Kansas Health Policy Authority moves forward with the Quality Assessment

At the September Kansas Health Policy Authority Board meeting, the KHPA decided to move forward on having quality assessment legislation presented at the November 2009 meeting.  The workgroup made up of members of KHCA,KABC, KDOA, KHPA, ILCS, and KAHSA will continue to work two different proposals.  Click here to see the summary sheet from the Kansas Health Policy Authority.  For more information please contact Cindy cluxem@khca.org

Just for everyone's information, KDOA budget recently submitted their 2011 budget request  to the Governor's office, it freezes the nursing home rates and the only enhancement requested for nursing homes is the inflationary increase but no rebasing.

We have avoided more severe cuts to this point because the adminstration has kept caseloads exempt.  But because of the severity of the budget everything will soon be on the table.

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  KDOA- CARE newsletter
Newsletter available on line.

Attention:  The attached link provides access to CARE/PASRR information.  Effective September 2009, the CARE Newsletter for CARE Assessors will be posted in September and March only.  Future CARE Assessor Training, Alert information and valid proofs of PASRR will be included.

http://www.aging.state.ks.us/CARE/CARE_index.htm

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