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Hello everyone,
Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you all have a great holiday with family and friends.
As always, thank you for taking some time to read Rural Route, and if you have any questions or need anything, please reach out to myself or TASC.
Thank
s,
Andy Naslund
Program Coordinator
Technical Assistance and Services Center (TASC)
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Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP) Updates
Highlights include:
- Welcome to Natalia Vargas, the new Medicare Beneficiary Quality Improvement Project (MBQIP) Coordinator and Flex Project Officer
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- Thank you to everyone for persisting through IT challenges with the Performance Improvement and Measurement System (PIMS) reporting process. All 45 states successfully completed your PIMS reports.
- The Texas Observer is publishing a series of stories about the challenges facing people seeking health care in rural Texas. These stories reminded me once again of the importance of rural health care.
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- We had several panels and presentations on November 21st at the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) for National Rural Health Day. We will soon post the recordings.
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- Finally, I am both pleased and sad to announce that I have accepted a new job as Deputy Director for the Policy Research Division in the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy. I have been your Flex Program Coordinator since April 2016, but I will be leaving this role the end of November. For the last three and a half years as program coordinator, I have been very privileged to work with the dedicated and hardworking people that make up the national Flex Program.
CAH Regulatory Update
Updates include:
- Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Final Rule on Calendar Year (CY) 2020 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule
- Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 Medicare Outpatient Prospective Payment System (PPS) Update and Comment Period
- CMS Final Rule for Hospital Price Transparency
- Tri-Agency Rule Issued on Health Insurer Price Transparency
- FCC Final Rule on Rural Health Care Program
- Multiple Requests for Application
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Welcome to
Caroline Wroczynski of Kansas and
Karl Bryant of Alabama.
We are happy to have you as part of Flex!
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We bid a fond farewell to Michael Smith of Alabama. We wish you well!
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And, of course, the TASC team would also like to bid a fond farewell to Sarah Young of FORHP. Sarah has been an amazing Flex Program Coordinator and a great leader for Flex. We would like to thank you for your great leadership over the past several years, and we wish you good luck in your new role as Deputy Director for the Policy Research Division, Sarah!
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Coming Up:
Stratis Health webinar training
Flex VKG webinar -- Monday, January 6, 2020 from 2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. Central Time.
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TASC Updates
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Save-the-Date: Reverse Site Visit
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In November, we were
excited to announce the
2020 Flex Program Reverse Site Visit (RSV)
has been scheduled for
August 5-6, 2020
at the
Washington Marriot Wardman Park in Washington, D.C.
This in-person Flex grantee meeting is supported by the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP)
and coordinated by the Technical Assistance and Services Center (TASC)
. The purpose of the Flex
RSV
is to highlight the latest information and issues in the Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility (Flex) Program, as well as offer states an opportunity to share experiences, lessons learned and successes in a collaborative learning environment.
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Request for Speaker Proposals
TASC will release a request for speaker proposals from state Flex Program personnel for the RSV breakout sessions. The RSV provides an opportunity to highlight the Flex Program work and improve the
Core Competencies for State Flex Program Excellence. The request for speaker proposals by state Flex Programs will be released in early February. Additional details about submission requirements and timeline is forthcoming.
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Registration
Online registration for the Flex Program RSV opens in April 2020. There is no registration fee required for this event. The intended audience for the Flex Program RSV is State Office Directors, Flex Coordinators/other key Flex personnel (two per state), FMT, RQITA, TASC Advisory Committee, and FORHP staff. If you would like to have more than two attendees, please contact your project officer at FORHP for approval.
Happy National Rural Health Day!
We hope you were able to celebrate the #PowerofRural
Nicole Clement and Tracy Morton of TASC
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New EMS Resources Available Now!
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The primary goal of the Rural Community Ambulance Agency Transformation Readiness Assessment and associated resources is to help ambulance agency leaders in rural America assess the state of their agency's readiness in the core competency areas outlined below. This assessment follows the Critical Access Hospital (CAH) Blueprint for Performance Excellence, adapted specifically for rural ambulance agencies, from the Baldridge Excellence Framework for Health Care. It provides resources and tools to assist rural ambulance agency leaders to succeed in moving from volume to value in their agency's culture and operations. Leaders are encouraged to complete the assessment periodically to monitor their progress and receive updated resources to guide their journey.
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This is a practical guide for ambulance services to use in their pursuit of sustaining effective and efficient delivery of patient care and developing into an integrated system with other agencies. It provides insights from agencies to promote integration to the benefit of the agencies, the staff, and, most importantly, to the patients.
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Moving from Loaded Miles to Value-Based Models: This report is a summary of the 2019 Rural Emergency Care Summit held in March 2019 to discuss rural emergency care integration. The report incorporates the meeting proceedings, as well as a list of key strategies for rural ambulance services and hospital leaders to deploy when engaging collaboratively in transition to value-based payment and care delivery models.
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Webinars, Recordings & Events
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Webinar Playbacks
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New and Updated Resources
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A full list of resources is available in the
TASC resource library
Many more resou
rces can be found on the TASC website
by searching for key words in the search field.
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340B Drug Pricing Program Guide
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The
340B Drug Pricing Program Guide was designed to provide rural hospital leadership with information regarding the 340B Drug Pricing Program. It is also designed to assist State Offices of Rural Health directors and Flex Program coordinators to better understand the process hospitals must follow to participate in the 340B Program.
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Best Practice Concepts in Revenue Cycle Management Guide
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Updated in 2019, the
Best Practice Concepts in Revenue Cycle Management Guide provides rural hospital executive and management teams with generally accepted best practice concepts in revenue cycle management so that they may consider opportunities for performance improvement within their own hospitals and individual departments. It is also designed to assist State Offices of Rural Health directors and Flex Program coordinators in gaining a better understanding of the revenue cycle best practices so that they may develop educational trainings to further assist rural hospitals with performance improvement.
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Transforming Health with Social Determinants of Health Coding
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Using ICD-10 CM codes to capture social determinants of health (SDOH) data is an incredible opportunity to identify, document, and track factors impacting health, such as employment, food insecurity, and homelessness.
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Together,
eHealth Initiative (eHI) and
UnitedHealthcare examined why these codes were not being used to their full potential. As a result, the group developed a set of tools to promote the adoption and use of the codes by provider organizations and coding professionals.
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During this webinar playback, you will hear from speakers from the collaboration explain how to best utilize the tools, share what their organizations are doing to address SDOH, and answer questions such as:
- What is the benefit of standardizing the capture of SDOH data?
- What is a Z code for SDOH?
- Can coding professionals use non-physician documentation to support ICD-10 CM coding for societal and environmental conditions?
- Are there guidelines for using ICD-10 codes for SDOH?
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Recognize the Early Symptonms of COPD: Learn More Breathe Better
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November is National Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Awareness Month. In addition to sharing the Center's
COPD Resources, take a minute to watch the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's (NHLBI) new animation video on recognizing the early symptoms of COPD.
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| Recognize the early symptoms of COPD: Learn More Breathe Better |
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Flex Monitoring Team: New Policy Brief on Flex FOI
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The Flex Monitoring Team has released a new
policy brief on CAH participation in Flex Financial and Operational Improvement (FOI) activities. The brief aims to identify the patterns of CAH participation in Flex-funded activities from 2015 to 2018 and to investigate whether CAHs at greater risk of financial distress were more likely to participate in FOI activities.
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MBQIP Updates
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Updated Resources
Please send your MBQIP questions to the
[email protected]. TASC will ensure your question reaches the appropriate person.
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The most recent interviews are on the topics of agriculture and mental health, various aspects of rural health, PAs and NPs in CAHs, and HIV, immunization, and billing.
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