Member Resources

Medicare Open Enrollment is from October 15 to December 7, 2021, and information for both aging services providers and Medicare beneficiaries in Massachusetts is available by clicking here.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is offering a web-based training course that provides an overview of the assessment and coding of Section O: O0100. Special Procedures, Treatments, and Programs. This 30-minute course is intended for providers in Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNFs) and is designed to be used on demand anywhere you can access a browser.

MassHealth has asked provider associations to send to its members the following message on utilization of robotics processing automation on the Provider Online Service Center (POSC) MassHealth providers (including vendors and relationship entities) conduct day-to-day business with MassHealth electronically, via the Provider Online Service Center (POSC), point to point connectivity, and the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system. All users must have an authorized MassHealth user ID and password to access these systems and must abide by the Virtual Gateway (VG)

The Massachusetts Department of Family and Medical Leave (DPML) has posted the following links over the last calendar quarter in regard to the most recent updates available on PFML.

On June 30, 2021, Executive Office of Elder Affairs (EOEA) released a memo concerning the launch of the online training course for providers to prevent and eliminate discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity and expression in accordance with state law, Chapter 19A, Section 43.

Orientation sessions for the MassMAP will be held on Wednesday November 3, 2021, 10:00 – 11:30 AM or Thursday November 4, 2021, 1:00 – 2:30 PM. The orientation sessions are for new MassMAP members as well as staff who are not familiar with the MassMAP and/or the MassMAP website.

MassHealth is conducting a Massachusetts Preadmission Screening and Resident Review (PASRR) Training to provide information on upcoming changes to the PASRR process, which will come into effect by the end of this month. It is important to note that the training will be conducted in Microsoft Teams.

On October 15, 2021 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra extended the ongoing COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) for an additional 90 days. The new expiration date for the COVID-19 PHE is now set for mid-January 2022.

Hamel-Lydon Chapel, a Mass Senior Care Associate Member, offers its Compassionate Service Awards annually and accepts applications on a rolling basis throughout the year. 10 award recipients are announced in the fall and Mass Senior Care is pleased to share that the following staff from member facilities have been selected this year.

Mass Senior Care Association was proud to nominate Larissa Lucas, MD FACP CMD HMDC, Medical Director Extended Care at North Shore Physician’s Group in Peabody, for the 2021 Schwartz Center National Compassionate Caregivers of the Year (NCCY) Award.

If you want to recruit talent in today’s competitive market, you need to adopt the digital tools available like social media and online job posting websites. But how can you make sure you’re investing your resources in the right places and getting the most out of what the tools have to offer? Join our webinar to learn how you can harness the power of social media to increase awareness of your long term care facility and generate more buzz for open positions.

Massachusetts Senior Care Association is pleased to be co-sponsoring JVS Boston’s quarterly Economic Opportunity Forum scheduled for Monday, November 8th from 12-1pm, the focus of the program will be Job Quality: An Equitable and Smart Strategy for Employers in This Tight Labor Market. Registration for the forum is FREE, followed by a 10-Day Job Quality Challenge.

The American Red Cross (ARC) will end its provision of nurse aide testing and Nurse Aide Registry support services (e.g. renewals, reciprocity, etc.) effective October 31, 2021, and register for Zoom webinar Leveraging Digital Strategies for Employee Recruitment In Long Term Care.

On October 15, 2021 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra extended the ongoing COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) for an additional 90 days, and join the zoom webinar to learn how you can harness the power of social media to increase awareness of your long term care facility and generate more buzz for open positions.

The DPH has released revisions to the Updates to the Considerations for Caring for COVID-19 Recovered Individuals Guidance, rest homes must use the DPH’s Health Care Facility Reporting System (HCFRS) to report cumulative monthly COVID-19 vaccination for residents and personnel through the COVID-19 Vaccination Module, and register for: Leveraging Digital Strategies For Employee Recruitment In Long Term Care.

The residents of Elizabeth Seton Residence walked or wheeled measured laps through the building for the past month and they recently reached their goal of a collective 26.2 miles, the distance of the Boston Marathon.

If you want to recruit talent in today’s competitive market, you need to adopt the digital tools available like social media and online job posting websites. But how can you make sure you’re investing your resources in the right places and getting the most out of what the tools have to offer?

Mass Senior Care has been notified by several members that upon signing into the NHSN web portal they have received an “Annual Survey” document .

The DPH sent out a reminder to nursing homes that COVID-19 vaccination information must be reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) by 11:59 p.m. each Sunday, the next DPH monthly call is scheduled for tomorrow, Wednesday, October 13 at 11:00 a.m, and Mass Senior Care Association is pleased to announce a new exclusive benefit designed to assist member nursing facilities.

In September 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) commissioned a Coronavirus Commission for Safety and Quality in Nursing Homes report. The main purpose of the report was to solicit lessons learned from the early days of the pandemic and recommendations for future actions to improve infection prevention and control measures, safety procedures, and the quality of life of residents within nursing homes. Earlier this week JAMA issued a follow up interview with one of the co-authors of the report, Terry Fulmer, a geriatric nurse practitioner who is president of The John A. Hartford Foundation.

The Massachusetts Health Council (MHC) Annual Awards Celebration will be held virtually on Tuesday, October 26th at 4:00 pm. MHC will be including a special tribute to long term care heroes and essential workers who showed up like none other during the COVID-19 crisis. Mass Senior Care and our members will be featured in the special tribute.

The Joint Committee on Joint Committee on Mental Health, Substance Use & Recovery held a public hearing related to parity and equity for people who have a substance use disorder (SUD.) Helen Magliozzi, Mass Senior Care’s Director of Regulatory Affairs testified in support of Senate Bill 1273 and House Bill 2122, Acts Relative to the Safe Care of Residents with Active Substance Use Disorder Accessing Skilled Nursing Facility Care. The legislation filed by Senator Julian Cyr, Leader James O’Day, and Representative Sean Garballey would establish a Post-Acute Care Substance Use Disorder Council under the direction of the Department of Public Health to establish standards and a payment model for special care units in skilled nursing facilities for the purpose of meeting the care needs of residents with opioid use disorder.

Mass Senior Care last week sent to members a detailed summary of the 2022 Medicaid nursing facility regulation which included a link to EOHHS website that provided facility specific case-mix rates, effective October 1, 2021. EOHHS has indicated that facilities will also receive rate letters with the full component breakdown via email this Friday, October 8th.

DPH has issued updated therapeutic guidance about monoclonal antibody therapeutics for healthcare providers.

Save $200 off the American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living’s Gero Nurse Prep course through November 15 with promo code INSPIRE21 (all caps). Specifically designed for registered nurses working in long term care, this curriculum provides comprehensive online training that leads to board certification in gerontological nursing by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) for RNs.

The Massachusetts Coalition for Serious Illness Care is convening its Sixth Annual Summit virtually on Thursday, October 14, 2021 from 1:00-3:30pm ET. Registration is free and open to the public.

As part of October’s #MassCyberMonth programming the Massachusetts eHealth Institute (MeHI) and the MassCyberCenter invite you to join us on Thursday, October 14 at 10AM as we expand on one of the most critical aspects of organizational cyber preparedness – tabletop exercises to develop and rehearse incident responses.

The US Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General (OIG) has released its updated list which reflects all OIG exclusions and reinstatement actions up to, and including, those taken in Augusy 2021. This new file is meant to replace the updated List of Excluded Individuals/Entities (LEIE) database file available for download last month. Individuals and entities that have been reinstated to the federal health care programs are not included in this file.

On September 29th, Mass Senior Care Association and Mass Workforce Association hosted a webinar for long term care providers and MassHire workforce system staff on Strengthening Long Term Care Workforce Development Partnerships. More than 120 individuals attended the session to discuss the workforce needs of long term care providers and how to build successful workforce development partnerships in the future.

Today the Department of Public Health sent out a reminder to long-term care facilities of the requirements to report any clusters of influenza and respiratory illness using the Influenza/Respiratory Illness Cluster Reporting Form. These teleforms will be responded to by epidemiologists in the Bureau of Infectious Disease and Laboratory Sciences at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (via phone call or email). One exception remains: for reporting of SARS-CoV-2 viruses (COVID-19) clusters, please continue to report those directly to the epidemiology unit by calling 617-983-6800. Please DO NOT use the respiratory cluster teleform to report COVID-19 clusters.

Mass Senior Care is asking every member to join us in urging state legislators to support nursing facility residents, their families and caregivers by funding Massachusetts Senior Care Association’s Nursing Facility Recovery and Sustainability Proposal. Click here to take action today!

The PRF Phase 4 and Rural Distributions application webpage is now live and offers an array of guidance and new educational opportunities including additional webinar dates in October.

The Legislature yesterday sent to Governor Baker a bill extending to April 1, 2022 the emergency COVID-19 Paid Sick Leave Program enacted earlier this year and set to expire on September 30, 2021, and the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) on September 27th released additional information on the $17 Billion Phase 4 and the $8.5 Billion Rural Distribution application.

Today, the DPH released guidance on the COVID-19 Booster Dose Vaccination in long-term care facilities.

Today the DPH released updates to Caring for LTC Residents During the COVID-19 Response and LTC Surveillance Testing guidance, DPH has also provided updated guidance on COVID-19 Personnel Vaccination Requirement in nursing homes specifically related to facility vaccination documentation requirements and clinical considerations for unvaccinated staff, Strengthening Long Term Care Workforce Development Partnerships webinar, and MSCA-MedPro international nurse recruitment partnership.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health is inviting healthcare facilities to participate in a webinar series conducted by CDC due to the concerning increase in C. auris cases and other multi drug-resistant organisms (MDROs) in the state, and across the country. The first webinar in the series is scheduled for Monday, September 27, 2021, from 12:00 pm -1:30 pm.

MassHealth has asked provider associations to disseminate the request below in regard to a MassHealth survey on Robotics Processing Automation.

Effective October 1, 2021, MassHealth will require that nursing facilities complete the additional fields found in sections GG, I, and J of the MDS that are associated with Patient Driven Payment Model (PDPM) classification for all MassHealth members residing in a nursing facility. These PDPM

This webinar, offered by the Massachusetts Senior Care Association and the Mass Workforce Association, will support long term care facilities with developing partnerships with local MassHire Career Centers, and Workforce Boards to help meet facilities’ workforce needs and provide job opportunities for unemployed individuals.

Massachusetts Senior Care Association is calling on state lawmakers to allocate a portion of the state’s surplus tax collections and funds from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to support nursing facility residents, their families and caregivers through a Nursing Facility Recovery and Sustainability Proposal. Citing the worst staffing crisis in history and the COVID-19 pandemic which have devastated the financial stability of the nursing facility sector and led to disruptions in access to care for vulnerable seniors, Mass Senior Care’s Recovery and Sustainability proposal calls for $559 million in vital nursing facility investments in resident care, workforce and modernizing nursing facilities to create more homelike settings of care.

The Massachusetts Senior Care Association and the Mass Workforce Association webinar will support long term care facilities with developing partnerships with local MassHire Career Centers, and Workforce Boards to help meet facilities’ workforce needs and provide job opportunities for unemployed individuals, CMS launches new Medicare.gov tool to compare nursing home vaccination rates, AHCA has posted on its website a pre-recorded webinar which discusses the latest Provider Relief Fund (PRF) reporting guidance, and EOHHS issues 2022 user fee update, effective July 2021.

Beginning today, September 20, 2021, all healthcare regions of the state will be designated as Tier 3, Long-Term Care Booster Vaccination Updates, and the next DPH monthly call is scheduled for Thursday, September 23, 2021, at 11:00 a.m.

Mass Senior Care Association is pleased to announce a new exclusive benefit designed to assist member nursing facilities with one of the most significant workforce challenges facing the sector - the recruitment and retention of registered nurses. Under the leadership of a subcommittee of the Mass Senior Care Board of Directors, the Association conducted a rigorous and comprehensive vetting process and has selected MedPro International as its international nurse staffing vendor.

The Executive Office of Elder Affairs has filed ALR emergency regulations regarding the COVID-19 vaccine requirement for all Assisted Living Residence personnel, and AHCA has provided an update on the Phase 4 Provider Relief Fund – the portal opens on September 29th.

Effective October 1, 2021, MassHealth will require that nursing facilities complete the additional fields found in sections GG, I, and J of the MDS that are associated with Patient Driven Payment Model (PDPM) classification for all MassHealth members residing in a nursing facility.