UPDATE Weekly

NC Health Care Facilities Association is pleased to once again partner with Empira to present a full-day seminar for all long term care providers on UNDISTURBED SLEEP & ACTIVE DAYS – KEYS TO IMPROVE QUALITY OF LIFE OF OUR RESIDENTS. The goals of this grant-funded quality improvement project were to have residents sleep undisturbed throughout the night and be more physically active and engaged during the day. Learn how they changed operations in providing care and services to reach these goals. This session will be May 19th at the Hilton Charlotte University Place, Charlotte, NC and will cover the following:

• Restate the key components of the Empira Fall Prevention program.
• Explain the process that leads to the Empira Restorative Sleep Vitality Program.
• Discuss the etiology of sleep and wake in human beings.
• Identify the key components of the Empira Restorative Sleep Vitality Program.
• Identify the top 10 disturbances to sleep.
• Provide five operational actions a long term care provider can do to prevent sleep disturbance.

The cost to attend this seminar is $195 for members and $390 for non-members. This fee includes handouts, snacks, and lunch. YOU CAN REGISTER AND PAY ONLINE! TO REGISTER, GO TO http://NursingHomesNC.com AND CLICK ON UNDISTURBED SLEEP & ACTIVE DAYS-KEYS TO IMPROVING QUALITY OF LIFE OF OUR RESIDENTS. You may also download a brochure here. Members may be invoiced. Non-members must submit payment on-line or mail with registration. Registration is open to anyone who would like to attend!

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On July 6, 2015, the US Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking under the Fair Labor Standards Act. A copy of the Notice can be found here. It is anticipated that the Rule will be finalized this summer.

One of the most significant changes that the Proposed Rule would cause is an increase in the salary threshold for an individual to be considered exempt from minimum wage and overtime pay under the Executive, Administrative and Professional (EAP) or ‘white collar’ exemption. From the Department of Labor’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking:

“Since 1940, the regulations implementing the white collar exemption have generally required each of three tests to be met for the exemption to apply: (1) The employee must be paid a predetermined and fixed salary that is not subject to reduction because of variations in the quality or quantity of work performed (the ”salary basis test”); (2) the amount of salary paid must meet a minimum specified amount (the ”salary level test”); and (3) the employee’s job duties must primarily involve executive, administrative, or professional duties as defined by the regulations (the ”duties test”).

One of the Department’s primary goals in this rulemaking is updating the section 13(a)(1) exemption’s salary requirements. The Department has updated the salary level requirements seven times since 1938, most recently in 2004. Under the current regulations, an executive, administrative, or professional employee must be paid at least $455 per week ($23,660 per year for a full-year worker) in order to come within the standard exemption; in order to come within the exemption for highly compensated employees (HCE), such an employee must earn at least $100,000 in total annual compensation.

The Department has long recognized the salary level test as ”the best single test” of exempt status. If left at the same amount over time, however, the effectiveness of the salary level test as a means of determining exempt status diminishes as the wages of employees entitled to overtime increase and the real value of the salary threshold falls. In order to maintain the effectiveness of the salary level test, the Department proposes to set the standard salary level equal to the 40th percentile of earnings for full-time salaried workers ($921 per week, or $47,892 annually for a full-year worker, in 2013). The Department is also proposing to set the highly compensated employee annual compensation level equal to the 90th percentile of earnings for full-time salaried workers ($122,148 annually). Furthermore, in order to prevent the levels from becoming outdated, the Department is proposing to include in the regulations a mechanism to automatically update the salary and compensation thresholds on an annual basis using either a fixed percentile of wages or the CPI-U.”

If the Department’s proposal is contained in the Final Rule, the salary threshold for 2016 will likely be $50,440 to be exempt under the EAP exemption. For more on the Proposed Rule, the Department of Labor has created a FAQ document that can be found here.

Given the likelihood that the Proposed Rule will become final soon, it is worthwhile to review employee classifications if you have not already done so as you are preparing for the implementation of CMS’s Mandatory Electronic Staffing Data Collection (PBJ).

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The Association would like to thank everyone who volunteered to be on a NCHCFA committee! We had a tremendous response. NCHCFA Chair, Phillip Hill, will be making committee assignments on Tuesday, April 26th. Everyone that volunteered will be notified whether or not they were assigned to a committee by mail. We appreciate everyone’s willingness to help guide the Association forward.

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On Tuesday, April 19, the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology of the US House Committee on Energy and Commerce gave a favorable report to H.R. 4111, the Rural Health Care Connectivity Act of 2015 (the Act). Representatives G.K. Butterfield (NC-01) and Renee Ellmers (NC-02) are among the members of the Subcommittee.

The Act would make certain Skilled Nursing Facilities eligible for support under the Federal Communications Commission’s Rural Health Care Program and Healthcare Connect Fund. The Rural Health Care Program provides funding to eligible health care providers for telecommunications and broadband services that are necessary for the provision of health care, and the Healthcare Connect Fund supports high-capacity broadband connectivity to eligible providers and encourages the creation of state and regional broadband provider networks. Eligibility for funding under these programs is limited to public or non-profit entities.

This is the House companion bill to S. 1916, which was approved unanimously by the Senate Commerce Committee on November 18, 2015. One of these bills must pass both the House and the Senate and be signed by the President to become law.

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Learn about the SNF Value-Based Purchasing Program at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Open Door Forum on Thursday, April 28th from 2:00 to to 3:00 PM ET. The Value-Based program will begin on October 1, 2018, but providers need to be prepared before implementation.

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AHCA/NCAL heads to Music City USA! Great entertainment, friendly people, and unforgettable experiences – all of this describes Nashville, Tennessee, known as Music City USA. But this also describes the AHCA/NCAL 67th Annual Convention & Expo, to be held in Nashville on October 16-19. This is the gathering place for long term and post-acute care professionals, where leaders in the field gather to share ideas, learn about new techniques and services, network, and have fun. Educational sessions are designed to help you provide for your residents in the most efficient and effective way; keynote talks will inspire you; visits to the Expo Hall will expose you to the very latest in products and services for your business; and networking events will help you make new friends. AHCA has it all this fall, and it’s all at the Annual Convention & Expo, in beautiful, friendly, musical Nashville. Make your plans now to attend! Click here to see more details and register today!

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Alliant Quality wants to encourage SNFs to keep signing up for the National Collaborative – or SPACE. Alliant recommends having as much time as possible to get started on Quality Assurance Performance Improvement (QAPI) improvement work and improving facility quality measures in a systems approach to improve their five star and composite scores.

Alliant Quality is the Medicare Quality Innovation Network (QIN)-Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) for North Carolina. Under contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Alliant Quality invites your nursing home to participate in a collaborative designed to ensure that every nursing home resident receives the highest quality of care.

The Collaborative offers an exciting opportunity to learn from high performing nursing homes regarding their processes as they pertain to consistent/permanent staff assignment, teamwork and communications, leadership, regulatory compliance, clinical models, and quality of life indicators. The Collaborative aligns national nursing home quality initiatives and partnerships such as the Advancing Excellence in America’s Nursing Homes Campaign, The Partnership to Improve Dementia Care, and QAPI. Targeted focus areas will include increasing mobility, decreasing unnecessary use of antipsychotics in residents with dementia, decreasing potentially avoidable hospitalizations and decreasing healthcare acquired infections and conditions.

When ready to register, click here for the Participation Agreement and fax or e-mail it back to Lisa Klemis. For more details, e-mail Jennifer Brock at Jennifer.Brock@area-F.hcqis.org or call (678) 527-3417.

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National Nursing Home Week® is May 8-14, 2016! AHCA’s 2016 National Nursing Home Week® (NNHW) specialty products are now available for purchase. This year’s theme with logo, It’s a Small World with a Big Heart, is featured on many of the available items. To purchase National Nursing Home week specialty products including posters, balloons, t-shirts, buttons, and more, shop on-line or call 800-321-0343.

Members are encouraged to place orders early for best product selection (color, size, and available quantities). NNHW items are very popular and will sell out. Ask about t-shirt discounts when ordering.

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Alliant Quality will offer two Webinars on Tuesday, May 24, 2016, first at 10:00 a.m. and again at 2:00 p.m. aimed at reducing the unnecessary use of antipsychotics in nursing home residents with dementia. Dr. Adrienne Mims, Vice President, Chief Medical Officer for Alliant Quality, and Mike Crooks, Alliant Pharmacy Lead, will be reviewing the Resident Prioritization Tool – to guide centers in prioritizing residents appropriate for reduction.

Register now by clicking https://qualitynet.webex.com.

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Keep people with dementia fully engaged in daily life and help them maximize remaining functional skills by tapping into their innate abilities and interests. Engaging and Communicating with People Who Have Dementia is a trove of advice on how to identify people’s strengths and preferences and then use this knowledge to improve activity programming, communication, and functional independence.

Based on the principles of multiple intelligences, this resource provides assessment forms and instructive explanations and examples to help uncover and then build on each person’s unique abilities. Abundant activity ideas are showcased for each type of intelligence-linguistic, logical, visual, tactile, auditory, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic-plus strategies for adapting them as a person’s abilities decline.

To order, visit http://www.AHCApublications.org or call (800) 321-0343. Fax orders may also be placed at (800) 869-5605.

Product #8311
AHCA MEMBERS $44.95

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Important information for residents and families… This brochure outlines what physical restraints are, when they should be used, rules and regulations concerning restraints, and making decisions about using them. To order, e-mail your request to Donna Snyder at donnas@nchcfa.org.

• NCHCFA Member: $30.00 per 100 brochures plus tax and shipping
• Non-Members: $60.00 per 100 brochures plus tax and shipping

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Finally, some good news about social media

http://www.mcknights.com/daily-editors-notes/finally-some-good-news-about-social-media/article/490366/

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On April 15, 1770, the eraser was discovered when English chemist Joseph Priestley discovered that a piece of latex can be used to remove pencil marks.

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