CONCORD, N.H., The Home Care Association of New Hampshire today announced Jessica Wiggins as the recipient of the 2014 Maryellen LaRoche Nursing Scholarship. Each year the Home Care Association presents a scholarship to recognize an exemplary nursing student who is employed at a member home care agency, in memory of Maryellen LaRoche. Maryellen was the […]
Author Archive | lhammond
Bonnie Phillips of Rochester Named LNA of the Year
Bonnie Phillips of Cornerstone VNA in Rochester was announced Home Care LNA of the Year at the Home Care Association of New Hampshire’s Annual Meeting in Meredith, NH on June 13. For fourteen years Ms. Phillips has brought positive energy, laughter and passion to her job, and to the patients of Cornerstone VNA. “She’s an […]
Community Paramedicine in Your Area
New Hampshire EMS has a protocol for “community paramedicine,” also known as “mobile integrated healthcare” and the concept of EMTs doing more than emergency care and transport is sweeping the country. EMTs could soon be doing med reconciliation and wound dressing changes for homebound patients in New Hampshire. A program in Eagle County Colorado uses EMTs, with […]
Monique Malanga Honored at Annual Meeting
CONCORD N.H., The Home Care Association of New Hampshire (HCANH) presented its 2014 Home Care Service Award to outgoing Treasurer Monique Malanga, Chief Financial Officer at Lake Sunapee VNA in New London. The Home Care Service Award is presented to someone who has made a significant contribution to home care through education, research, advocacy or […]
Home Care Association Elects New Board
The Home Care Association of New Hampshire (HCANH) elected a new Board of Directors at its Annual Meeting held June 13 in Meredith, NH. HCANH represents licensed agencies that provide in-home health care and supportive services to individuals living throughout New Hampshire. The Association promotes the delivery of responsible, high quality health care in the […]
NH Health Care a United Front on F2F
New Hampshire health care providers have joined together in asking the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) to reconsider how it interprets the Medicare home health Face to Face encounter requirements in the Affordable Care Act. In a letter sent to CMS on Friday, four provider associations voiced their frustration with regulations that often […]
Effort Launched to Eliminate F2F Documentation Requirements through the Appropriations Process
Full text from NAHC June 5, 2014 01:15 PM The Home Care Association of New York State, NAHC’s Forum of State Associations (Forum), and NAHC are spearheading an effort that would provide a simple legislative fix that would offer relief from the onerous Medicare face-to-face (F2F) rule. They are working to get language inserted into […]
Meridian To Leave NH Medicaid
Today, New Hampshire’s Department of Health and Human Services announced that Meridian Health Plan will withdraw from NH Medicaid Managed Care, effective June 30th. Meridian will continue to provide services to members and reimburse providers through July 31st. Medicaid enrollees will be transitioned to the other two MCOs. Please see the link, or the text […]
Tips for Members: Focus on Your Strength
All of our member home care agencies provide similar services and have great staff, so why refer to you? Getting referrals and then getting and keeping them as clients is, by far, the most effective way to spend your marketing time and money. As an agency, the potential referral sources do need to see you. […]
A Spoon Brings Dignity to Those with Hand Tremors
Although feeding yourself soup or cereal seems easy enough, for the 1 million Americans who struggle with the tremors of Parkinson’s disease, and the 10 million Americans who have a disorder called essential tremor, it is nearly impossible to keep their food on the spoon. This is the problem that engineer Anupam Pathak wanted to […]
CMS Hosts F2F Open Door Forums
CMS has recently conducted a Special Open Door Forum that introduced participants to a suggested Electronic Clinical Template for the home health face to face encounter documentation. The initiative is from of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC,) Standards & Interoperability (S&I) Framework. The S&I Framework is responsible for developing […]
High Blood Pressure Education Month
One out of three American adults has hypertension. That’s 67 million people who are 4 times more likely to die from a stroke and 3 times more likely to die from heart disease. More than half of these Americans do not have their high blood pressure under control, and because it often has no warning […]
NIH Soliciting Applications for Mobile Health Grant
The National Institutes of Health is soliciting grant applications for a new mobile health project, known as mHealth. The purpose of this initiative is to stimulate research utilizing Mobile Health (mHealth) tools aimed at the improvement of effective patient–provider communication, adherence to treatment and self-management of chronic diseases in under-served populations. With the rapid expansion […]
CMS Proposes a F2F template for Physician EMRs
This week, CMS conducted a Special Open Door Forum that introduced participants to a suggested Electronic Clinical Template for the home health face to face encounter documentation. The initiative is from of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC,) Standards & Interoperability (S&I) Framework. The S&I Framework is responsible for developing […]
DHHS Releases Title III & XX RFA
On April 22, the NH Bureau of Elderly and Adult Services released its “Request for Applications” for provision of In-Home Care, In-Home Health Aide and In-Home Nursing Level of Care Services funded thru Title III and Title XX federal block grants. The programs support at-risk individuals who are not otherwise eligible for similar services thru […]
It’s Always Too Soon Until It’s Too Late: Advanced Care Planning With Alzheimer’s
Last week HealthAffairs.Org featured a series of articles on Alzheimer’s disease including this powerful first person account by The Conversation Project’s co-founder, Ellen Goodman, about discussing end of life wishes with her sister. In the April issue, Ellen recounts the terrible choices and harsh reality of the illness at the end of her sister’s life. Below […]
Nominations Sought for Excellence Awards
The Home Care Association of New England is seeking nominees for the Home Care Service Award, the Maryellen LaRoche Public Policy Award and the Maryellen LaRoche Nursing Scholarship. The awards will be presented at the HCANH/NHHPCO Annual Meeting on June 13, 2014. The National Association of Home Care and Hospice (NAHC) and the Home […]
OIG Says Face-to-face Isn’t Working
A recent study by the Office of Inspector General found that the face-to-face rule for home health fails nearly one third of the time. According to the report, 32 percent of home health claims requiring face-to-face encounters failed to meet Medicare rules, resulting in $2 billion in payments that should not have been made. Furthermore, […]
ICD 10 Delay Indefinate
After years of telling us they are serious this time and everyone in the health care system had better be ready to implement the new disease coding system, on April 1st, CMS said the whole project is going to be delayed indefinitely. Despite the date, they weren’t joking. Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced President Obama had signed […]
Dartmouth Study Finds Medicare’s Methodology Flawed
Press Release from the Dartmouth Institute- Annmarie.Christensen@dartmouth.edu New Dartmouth study in the journal BMJ offers roadmap for better risk adjustment Lebanon, N.H. – The methodology Medicare uses to adjust the billions of dollars it pays health plans and hospitals to account for how sick their patients are is flawed and should be replaced, according to […]