LTC emergency management refresher: NHICS is part of the formula for success
By
Stan Szpytek
Sep 02, 2022
Whether the threat is an inbound hurricane, fast-moving wildfire, massive power failure, active shooter on the loose in the community or any threat to the safety and security of your long term care facility,...
What’s old isn’t working. What’s new is funding accountability and care outcomes.
By
Zach Shamberg
Feb 21, 2024
In 2024, Pennsylvania’s long-term care continuum, including nearly 700 nursing homes across the state, finds itself at a true crossroads of accountability and care outcomes. We’re two years removed...
An analysis of PREP Act immunity for LTC facilities
By
Norris Cunningham
Angela Rinehart
Dec 04, 2022
A host of lawsuits over the past two years involve nursing homes where patients or their estates allege that patients contracted COVID-19 due to the facilities’ negligence or failure to properly act. ...
Inventive languages
By
Jacqueline Vance, RNC, CDONA/LTC
Nov 08, 2022
My family tells me that when I was a very little girl, I apparently had a proclivity for creating my own language that only my older sister could interpret. It took some coaching but eventually I adapted...
Medicare Advantage: A not-so-advantageous deal for beneficiaries and providers
By
Brendan Williams
Nov 29, 2023
Open enrollment is well underway for Medicare, as television viewers inundated with cheesy insurance company ads can tell. Those ads must work. For the first time 2024 will see most Medicare...
Biden’s regulatory Death Star
By
Brendan Williams
Sep 11, 2023
Despite federal data showing that the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to massive job losses for nursing and residential care facilities – with the workforce 218,200 workers smaller last month...
Home for the holidays: What does it mean for your patients?
By
Renee Kinder
Dec 15, 2022
Home, what does it mean to you? Home (ˈhōm) has many definitions: one’s place of residence; the social unit formed by a family living together a familiar or usual setting; congenial environment;...
Trick or treat? MDS changes are in the bag
By
Joel VanEaton
Oct 03, 2023
When I was a kid, I loved getting dressed up for Halloween. I remember especially a clown (funny not scary) costume I got one year. I couldn’t wait to put it on and be transformed into another world....
Superdodger or just lucky?
By
Jean Wendland Porter
Sep 20, 2022
Some people don’t get the viruses that run rampant in their families, their SNFs, their neighborhoods, or in their cities. According to the CDC, more than 80% of children under 18 have had COVID-19 at...
Will you pass CMS’s new schizophrenia MDS audits?
By
Steven Littlehale
Mar 31, 2023
In 2016, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services started focused on-site surveys to address the issue of erroneous coding of schizophrenia in nursing homes. More recently, the agency began conducting...