Medicare Streamlines Paperwork Requirements for Nursing Homes to Allow Nurses, Other Caregivers to Spend More Time with Patients

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) today (5/28/02) announced streamlined Medicare paperwork requirements so that nurses and other clinical staff in nursing homes can spend more time caring for patients and less time filling out forms.

Beginning July 1, skilled nursing facilities will be able to use a shorter version of an assessment form used to gather information needed to pay Medicare claims. The shorter form will cut the time that it takes for nurses to fill out the forms in half – from 90 minutes to 45 minutes – while continuing to collect data needed to measure quality of care in nursing homes. To read the press release click on:

http://cms.hhs.gov/media/press/release.asp?Counter=462

New Report Raises Awareness Of Long-Term Care Staffing Crisis

The Institute for the Future of Aging Services and the Urban Institute have released their report, "Who Will Care for Us?". The report deals with the workforce crisis facing long-term care facilities and some of the ways care providers work to improve their recruitment, selection and retention of workers. To read the full report click on:

http://www.urban.org/health/CareForUs.html

Or for the PDF version click on:

http://www.urban.org/pdfs/CareForUs.pdf

CMS Kicks Off Quality Indicators Demonstration Program

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have begun a demonstration program to identify, collect and publish nursing home quality information in Colorado, Maryland, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Washington. CMS and the National Quality Forum have identified 11 risk-adjusted quality measures that will be used in the initial program. If the program works it is slated to be pushed to all 50 states beginning in October 2002.

As a side note, Clint Maun, CSP, the founder of IHN Solutions and Maun-Lemke, Inc., has been asked to participate in the quality initiative along with other healthcare leaders from across the nation.

To read more about the initiative's scope click on:

http://www.cltcmag.com/contemporarycare/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1114755
(sorry, link is no longer valid)

CMS Reports National Health Expenditures, 2000

Freestanding nursing home expenditures accelerated to 3.3 percent following four consecutive years of decelerating growth. Despite Medicare's small share of total nursing home expenditures (10 percent), significant swings in its expenditure growth account for more than 40 percent of the increase in overall nursing home expenditures.

For the complete report click on: www.hcfa.gov/stats/NHE-OAct (link is not longer valid).