Recent changes have been made to the home health agency regulation, 902 KAR 20:081. The new changes are effective as of 6/2/17, and a copy of the regulation may be downloaded from the LRC website at the following link:

http://www.lrc.ky.gov/kar/902/020/081.htm.

The following is a brief summary of the key changes:

* In the previous version of the regulation, a registered nurse or other appropriate professional staff was required to make a supervisory visit to a patient's residence at least every two (2) weeks to observe and assist a home health aide or otherwise assess whether goals are being met in the aide's absence. The recent change to the regulation now aligns 902 KAR 20:081, Section 4(4)(d) with federal certification standards for home health agencies by removing the requirement for the supervisory visit to occur at least every two (2) weeks and replaces such with a requirement for the visit to occur at least every sixty (60) days if the patient does not receive skilled nursing care or another skilled service. A supervisory visit must continue to be made at least every two (2) weeks if the patient receives skilled nursing care or another skilled service.

* The new regulation also clarifies that medical examinations for home health agency staff who serve patients in their place of residence must occur no less than every three (3) years, see Section 4(1)(b). The previous version of the regulation simply stated that staff medical examinations were required "periodically".

* The new regulation further establishes the criminal offenses resulting in a prohibition against employment in a home health agency, see Section 4(1)(h).

* The definition of "intermittent nursing service" was deleted from Section 1. Clarification has been added in Section 2(1) that requires home health agencies to provide "part-time or intermittent health and health related services". The phrase "part-time" was also added to Section 5(1) to clarify that home health agencies must provide part-time or intermittent skilled nursing services in addition to other services.

* Finally, the regulation extends the timeframe from twenty-one (21) to thirty (30) days to secure the signature of the physician after a verbal authorization is made to change the plan of care. Also extends the timeframe from twenty-one (21) to thirty (30) days to secure the signature of the ordering personnel after a verbal authorization to change a drug order.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary's Operations Center shares message with states and providers.

If your organization is the victim of a ransomware attack or have cyber threat indicators to share, please contact law enforcement immediately.

Contact your  FBI Field Office Cyber Task Force immediately to report a ransomware event and request assistance.  These professionals work with state and local law enforcement and other federal and international partners to pursue cyber criminals globally and to assist victims of cyber-crime.

Report cyber incidents to the  US-CERT  (United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team) and the  FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center.

For further analysis and healthcare-specific indicator sharing, please also share these indicators via email with  HHS' Healthcare Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (HCCIC).

The National Background Check Program (NBCP) grant expired on May 19, 2017. Because federal NBCP grant funds are no longer available to subsidize the cost of facilitating State and FBI fingerprint checks, the fee has changed from $20 to $62 per check. In addition to the fingerprint check, the fee includes the cost of enrolling the applicant in the State rap back program for a period of five (5) years from the date of the fingerprint check, automated abuse registry checks, and ongoing abuse registry checks for active personnel. Access to these features is dependent on KARES continued operation. Please remember that the State rap back program and continual automated abuse registry checks are currently only available through the KARES system. 

The OASIS C Quality Improvement Measure correction calculations were successfully run off-cycle on May 3, 2017. The OASIS C Quality Improvement reports available in the CASPER Reporting application now include data from the OASIS records whose data would have been calculated on April 22, 2017. 

All HHA providers that were affected by the original calculation issue should have received an email notifying them that the calculations have been run successfully.

  

The CMS Spotlight website below provides recent news and updates pertinent to the Home Health Quality Initiative. On this page you will find announcements about posting of resource guides and fact sheets, the availability of Q&A documents, information about Home Health Care, among other notifications.

https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Quality-Initiatives-Patient-Assessment-Instruments/HomeHealthQualityInits/HHQISpotlight.html