Member Resources

Effective November 1, 2019, the American Red Cross State Testing Office, which coordinates certification renewals for certified nurse aides (CNAs), has a new address.

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 October 2019. 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.

The submission deadline for the Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF) Quality Reporting Program (QRP) has been extended to November 18, 2019. Assessment data SNFs submitted April 1 – June 30 (Q2) of calendar year (CY) 2019 are due with this deadline.

Mass Senior Care will present testimony on EOHHS $56 million nursing facility rate regulation at tomorrow’s public hearing. Mass Senior Care is grateful that the October 1 regulation implements the legislatively-required $50 million rate increase designed to begin to help stabilize the nursing home sector.

Legislation impacting long term care facilities was heard at the October 29th Joint Committee on Elder Affairs hearing. Representative Denise Garlick (D-Needham) presented oral remarks on her bill, House Bill 609, An Act Relative to Promoting the Betterment of Resident’s Health and Safety in Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Facilities

Life Care Centers of America recently honored Ted Eliopoulos, Director of Business Development, upon his retirement. Ted has worked in long term care for over 25 years and throughout his tenure has been an active member of Mass Senior Care Association. We extend our best wishes to Ted!

The Intent to Apply (ITA) for the 2020 AHCA/NCAL National Quality Award application cycle application cycle is closing soon! The deadline to submit an ITA is November 7, 2019. AHCA/NCAL encourages you to submit an ITA through the Quality Award Portal here before the deadline. For more information about the AHCA/NCAL National Quality Award Program and the benefits of submitting an ITA, please visit ahcancal.org/qualityaward .

Staffing data from July 1st through September 30th must be submitted no later than 45 days from the end of the quarter. The final submission deadline for this quarter is November 14th, 2019. Only data successfully submitted by the deadline is considered timely and used on the Nursing Home Compare website and in the five star rating calculations. Once a facility uploads their data file, they need to check their final Validation Report, which can be accessed in the Certification

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a short video tutorial on October 17, 2019 to assist providers with coding the Minimum Data Set (MDS) GG0130A. Eating item.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released 13 YouTube videos recorded during a 'Train-the-Trainer' event which occurred in Baltimore, Maryland on August 13 and 14, 2019.

The Senate Committee on Ways and Means earlier this week proposed its FY2019 deficiency appropriation bill, which includes $10 million to restore funding for 170 nursing facilities which saw rate cuts of up to $2.80/day.

The 2nd meeting of the legislatively mandated Nursing Home Task Force was held last Friday, October 18, and focused on Medicaid reimbursement and Labor and Workforce issues. Separate presentations were made by: Assistant Secretary for MassHealth Daniel Tsai, MSCA President Tara Gregorio and Jennifer James, Undersecretary, Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development.

Alexis Exama knew she wanted to be a nurse growing up. Her mother, a nurse at a local nursing home, would bring Alexis to visit with residents.

Join Us on December 4th for a fun event to support the Mass Senior Care Foundation! Featuring a Craft Beer Tasting, fun food and the opportunity to network with long term care leaders!

Please join Mass Senior Care, NALCO Water, An Ecolab Company and the Department of Public Health on October 31, 2019 at 1:00 pm for a webinar on Legionnaires’ Disease: What’s New, What’s True and What to Do.

Massachusetts Bronze and Silver Quality Award recipients were recognized at the AHCA/NCAL Annual Convention in Orlando. Mass Senior Care congratulates the following member facilities for their achievement and dedication to performance excellence.

EOHHS has indicated that it will postal mail to facilities their October 1 Medicaid 2020 rate certification letters at the end of this week, with receipt expected by the Monday, October 28 th. For any questions about rate certification letters, providers should contact CHIA’s LTC call center via email at CHIAcostreports.LTCF@State.MA.US or by phone at 617-701-8297. As noted in Mass Senior Care Association’s earlier communication to members, the new rate regulation is a $56 million package, including implementation of the

AHCA has provided an update in regard to CMS and Medicare Administrative Contractors (MAC) Claims Processing.

The House of Representatives, yesterday, passed its FY2019 deficiency appropriation bill, which includes $10 million to restore funding for 170 nursing facilities which saw rate cuts of up to $2.80/day, as a result of an abrupt and fundamental redesign of MassHealth’s longstanding capital reimbursement methodology.

Oriol Health Care recently donated 35 ventilator units to Dr. Plutarco Castellanos. Dr. Castellanos will be bringing the ventilators to a newly built hospital in Honduras which will help people in need who are waiting for a unit to become available.

The CDC will host a free webinar on Preventing the Spread of Novel or Targeted Multidrug-resistant Organisms (MDROs) in Nursing Homes through Enhanced Barrier Precautions on Thursday, October 24, 2019 from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm. The CDC recently introduced a new approach called Enhanced Barrier Precautions to help address the challenges in caring for residents with MDROs in nursing homes.

MassHealth’s Technical Refresh, on October 27, 2019, will replace its "end of life" HIPAA compliance and translator tool. Providers and Trading Partners who submit and receive 270/271 batch eligibility transactions are required to evaluate the changes outlined in the MassHealth HIPAA Companion Guides, modify their systems as appropriate, and test the transaction with MassHealth to ensure that files submitted on or after the implementation date will process correctly.

Mass Senior Care’s President Tara Gregorio and Vice President of Clinical Operations for Bane Care Management, Lynne Farrell were featured in the Betsey Lehman Center’s Patient Safety Beat article, "Efforts are on to raise flu vaccination rates for Massachusetts health care staff."

Mass Senior Care earlier this week testified at the MassHealth hearing on the Ambulance and Wheelchair Van services regulation that was adopted on an emergency basis, effective September 20, 2019. The regulation updated Medicaid transportation rates. MSCA members have noted that access to wheelchair van transportation for nursing facility residents to travel to needed physician, treatment or other medical appointments has become increasingly difficult to secure over the last year as many transportation providers have found it challenging to provide transportation service to nursing facilities residents due to Medicaid underfunding.

BaneCare Management, has received the Silver Award in the 2019 McKnight’s Excellence in Technology Awards program. BaneCare is being recognized for their data analysis on residents who are admitted to the hospital after being discharged from a skilled nursing facility.

Mass Senior Care is pleased to welcome new members to our Association. Our Associate Members have demonstrated their commitment to the senior care provider community by joining Mass Senior Care and participating as exhibitors and sponsors for events and educational conferences. Mass Senior Care members are encouraged to contact Associate Members when they are in need of long term care products and services.

AHCA has published two new tools and a resource list in the ahcancalED section of the AHCA website. These resources were developed by the AHCA Survey/Regulatory workgroup to support nursing centers and assisted living communities in preventing and addressing reported incidents of resident-to-resident mistreatment.

EOHHS last week issued proposed revised rates for services provided by temporary nursing to licensed hospitals and nursing facilities -- 101 CMR 345/Temporary Nursing Services (TNS). The proposed amendments would establish the rate limits for temporary nursing agency services for each geographic region as purchased by hospitals and nursing facilities effective January 1, 2020.

Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Bureau of Infectious Disease and Laboratory Sciences and Bureau of Health Care Safety and Quality invites you to participate in an educational webinar on healthcare personnel influenza vaccination for long-term care facilities. This webinar is scheduled for October 23rd, 2019 from 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm. Click here to register for this webinar

EOHHS has scheduled a public hearing on Friday, November 1, 2019, at 10:00 a.m. in the First Floor Conference Room, 100 Hancock Street, Quincy, Massachusetts MA relative to the adoption of the FY 2020 Medicaid nursing facility rate regulation - 101 CMR 206.00: Standard Payments to Nursing Facilities. The regulation was adopted last week on an Emergency basis. The EOHHS Nursing Home Provider Payments webpage includes links to the new regulation and summary rate worksheet. EOHHS will issue the October 1 rate certification letters to providers via email on or around October 22nd.

The Determination of Need (DoN) program has released guidelines which provides guidance to applicants on submitting proposed project applications that consolidate all planned or reasonably foreseeable capital expenditures for a licensed health care facility during a single federal fiscal year. The DoN program will host an educational webinar on the consolidation guideline for all interested parties to provide information about changes to the application process.

CMS this week issued three important manual updates for PDPM implementation including Medicare General Information, Eligibility, and Entitlement Manual PDPM, Medicare Benefit Policy Manual and the Medicare Claims Processing Manual.

CMS announced that starting on October 23, 2019, nursing facilities that have been cited at the G-level or above for abuse, neglect and exploitation under F600, F602 and F603 in the last year or at the D-level or above for the potential harm in the past two year will be flagged with an abuse icon on Nursing Home Compare. 43 Massachusetts nursing facilities are impacted by this policy.

EOHHS has adopted on an emergency basis updated Medicaid rates of payment for Ambulance and Wheelchair Van services, effective September 20, 2019. Mass Senior Care has urged MassHealth to address transportation funding and shortages to ensure access to critical wheelchair van services.

Don't miss our 2019 Annual Meeting & Trade Show on Thursday, November 14th at the DCU Center in Worcester. This year's theme, “The Future of Long Term Care: Strategies to Survive and Succeed”, will feature Clif Porter, Senior Vice President of Government Relations at AHCA/NCAL and Secretary Rosalin Acosta, Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development.

The Department of Public Health has published on its website information on preventing falls with injury in nursing homes. A newly published Special Emphasis Report: Nursing Home Falls with Injury, by Patient Characteristics 2013-2018 uses data reported to DPH to better understand individual characteristics that may increase the likelihood of a fall as well as those that may make it less likely for a resident to suffer a fall.

Massachusetts Senior Care Association is a proud partner organization of The Massachusetts Sepsis Consortium, a public-private effort of more than two dozen organizations to reduce sepsis morbidity and mortality, coordinated by the Betsy Lehman Center for Patient Safety. The Massachusetts Sepsis Consortium marked Sepsis Awareness Month by launching Sepsis Smart, a statewide campaign to alert people to sepsis, its symptoms and the need to act fast if sepsis is suspected.

Marquis Health Services held an open house event last week to celebrate the recently completed renovations to North End Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center in Boston.

The transition of the Nurse Aide Registry from the IVR Phone System to the new, online Nurse Aide Registry Inquiry System (NARIS) is complete. Moving forward, all Registry checks must be completed online using NARIS.

Implementation of the new Medicare Patient-Driven Payment Model (PDPM) commenced on October 1st. AHCA has also created a survey to secure real-time information on PDPM implementation for the purpose of informing our advocacy efforts with CMS.

Labor and workforce issues continue to be a top concern for Mass Senior Care provider members. Earlier this week, Mass Senior Care electronically distributed to nursing facilities a Labor and Workforce Survey due by October 9, 2019.

The Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS) has adopted via an Emergency basis the FY 2020 Medicaid nursing facility rate regulation. The EOHHS Nursing Home Provider Payments webpage includes links to the new regulation and summary rate worksheet.

Mass Senior Care invites staff at member facilities to participate in various committees designed to share information on the topics of clinical quality, regulatory, human resources and finance and reimbursement. This information and feedback will assist MSCA staff with developing policy positions and prioritizing strategic initiatives. Committee meetings are held in Mass Senior Care’s office in Waltham. Facility members are invited to participate. If you are interested in attending one of the upcoming committee meetings, please contact Jennifer Chen

Implementation of the new Medicare Patient-Driven Payment Model (PDPM) starts on October 1 st. Over the last year, Mass Senior Care has worked to ensure that members are well prepared for this payment change through a series of educational seminars and workshop trainings, including the PDPM Academy seminar, and provision of the Toolkit Resources. We request that you please contact us immediately if your facility experiences any unanticipated difficulties during the initial transition period so that we can work to