Employers Must Pay New Excise Tax on Self-Insured Health Plans By July 31

From LeadingAge Washington Business Partner member CliftonLarsonAllen:

Employers that sponsor a self-insured health plan have until July 31, 2013, to submit an updated form and payment for a new tax requirement. Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) to fund the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), a new initiative to improve health decisions by advancing comparative clinical effectiveness research.

Read more.

Understanding Technologies that Support Older Adults in Aging-in-Place

From AgeTech West: 

According to the Center for Technology and Aging (CTA), we are at the dawning of “connected aging” in which the growing array of Internet-based technologies and mobile devices increasingly will support older adults to age in place. Emerging technologies will enable both older adults and their caregivers to address a comprehensive range of medical, health, social, and functional needs.

Solutions that connect older adults to friends, family, and community are becoming more viable; older adults and their caregivers are growing increasingly tech savvy; technology usability is improving; and price points are descending.

CTA recently published an issue brief on Connected Aging and launched an online mHealth Toolkit that offers resources on developing mHealth programs for chronic disease management. You can find the Issue Brief and ADOPT Toolkit on AgeTech’s Provider Resource Page.

CMS Rolls Out QAPI Materials for Nursing Homes

After much anticipation, CMS is pleased to announce the rollout of Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement (QAPI) materials to help nursing homes establish a foundation to support and sustain QAPI. This is the first step in meeting the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requirement for CMS to develop a technical assistance program to help nursing homes establish best practices in quality.

Read the details here.  For more information, contact Bonnie Blachly at bblachly@leadingagewa.org

New Research: Adult Day Services For Individuals with Dementia Reduces Stress for Caregivers

Adult day services provided a much-needed break that reduced the negative health effects caused by chronic stress from caregiving, according to research by Steven Zarit, Ph.D., from Penn State, published in the May 23, 2013, issue of The Gerontologist.

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The Potential of Partnerships Between Healthcare and Arts

Imagine a hospital with musicians on call, able to come to your bedside to play for you. Arts and crafts workshops tailored to the needs of patients with a specific type of illness. Healing gardens with visual arts classes. Weekly lunchtime poetry readings. While it’s not the harsh white light and smell of antiseptic cleaners most people associate with healthcare, this model is gaining in popularity.

For decades, some organizations have incorporated the arts into healthcare, and now, as more and more of them are forging partnerships across a variety of organizations, the practice has a broader reach than ever. All of the examples above are real, and they are from one program, Shands Arts in Medicine at UF&Shands, the teaching hospital at the University of Florida.

Read more.

LeadingAge Innovations Fund Open for Applications

The LeadingAge Innovations Fund is designed to catalyze innovation among our members to develop programs that have the potential for demonstrable impact on residents, clients, families, employees or the broader community and have the potential for replication. Up to 8 grants will be awarded for a maximum amount of $25,000 per grant. This is twice as many grants as were awarded in 2012.

The 2013 round seeks to identify promising strategies for linking health and supportive services with congregate housing settings to help low-income residents meet their needs and safely age in their home and community. Projects may include services in any area and be delivered through any mechanism.

Read more here.  Grants from the Innovations Fund are made possible through the generosity of LeadingAge members and a matching grant from the NewCourtland Foundation.

Apply For An Award Recognizing Innovation in End-of-Life Care

The Circle of Life Awards honor innovative programs in palliative and end-of-life care.  All organizations or groups in the United States that provide palliative or end-of-life care are eligible for the award.  Apply here.

Tech Savvy Residents Drive New Demands in Senior Living

Due to an increasing adoption of new communication technology by senior housing residents and their families, solutions are emerging to meet those who are already considered “tech savvy.”

The 55-plus age group is the fastest growing demographic online, according to a study from Koeppel Direct that also found more than 85% of people ages 65 and older are email users.

Whether the technology is used for a medical need, or simply to keep in touch, the solutions are becoming not just optional, but essential for those entering senior living communities, as the result of more seniors going—and staying—online.

Read the full article.

Another Successful Housing with Services Pilot Project

A partnership between Presbyterian Senior Living and PinnacleHealth, both in Pennsylvania, is bringing a Pinnacle physician, nurse navigator and social worker to Presbyterian Apartments, PSL’s 150-unit affordable housing property.  Read about the pilot program here.

For more information, contact Julie Martin.

HUD Released New EIV Requirements May 6

Multifamily Housing EIV System 9.5 update was successfully released on Monday May 6, 2013. Linked here are the new functionalities that have been added to Multifamily EIV.

Advanced Directives/Medical Emergencies: Dear AL Provider Letter Issued

On May 28, DSHS/ALTSA released a Dear Assisted Living Provider letter:

The purpose of this letter is to clarify the emergency response requirements that apply to assisted living facilities and to rescind and replace a July 2012 letter (ALF #2012-011), which only provided information about a form called "physician's orders for life-sustaining treatment" or POLST. 

CMS Opens Round Two of Health Care Innovation Awards

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released a Funding Opportunity Announcement for round two of the Health Care Innovation Awards. Under this announcement, CMS will spend up to $1 billion for awards and evaluation of projects from across the country that test new payment and service delivery models that will deliver better care and lower costs for Medicare, Medicaid, and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) enrollees.

The second round of the Health Care Innovation Awards will support public and private organizations in four defined areas that have a high likelihood of driving health care system transformation and delivering better outcomes. Specifically, in this second round, CMS is seeking proposals in the following categories:

• Models that are designed to rapidly reduce Medicare, Medicaid, and/or CHIP costs in outpatient and/or post-acute settings.
• Models that improve care for populations with specialized needs.
• Models that test approaches for specific types of providers to transform their financial and clinical models.
• Models that improve the health of populations – defined geographically (health of a community), clinically (health of those with specific diseases), or by socioeconomic class – through activities focused on engaging beneficiaries, prevention (for example, a diabetes prevention program or a hypertension prevention program), wellness, and comprehensive care that extend beyond the clinical service delivery setting.

In this round, CMS specifically seeks new payment models to support the service delivery models funded by this initiative. All applicants must submit, as part of their application, the design of a payment model that is consistent with the new service delivery model that they propose.