Professional Development

NAHCHA provides help to advance the professional development of its members through leadership, education and networking opportunities. Topics are offered that meet the needs of a variety of audiences including home healthcare directors, nurses, therapists, aides and billing professionals. Education programs focus on home health areas such as:

Financial Management for Home Health

• Care pathways for chronic diseases that predict clinical outcomes and ensure cost containment.
• How recent technology bridges gaps in care using past, present and future examples that deliver higher quality outcomes, increased profitability, and improved communication.
• Unique value home care can provide across the health care continuum with integrated chronic care management.
• Key performance indicators for Medicare Home Health Operations.
• Benchmarks of high margin, high quality Medicare Home Health agencies.
• Care delivery reforms incorporated into recent health care reform legislation and what their implications may be to home care.

Home Care Today - What We Need to Know

• Improving acute care hospitalization and oral medication management rates through knowledge and use of the HHQI Best Practice Intervention Packages (BPIPs).
• Medicare Home Health benefit and clinical documentation.
• Process, requirements and responsibilities associated with the Home Health Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers & Systems (HHCAHPS).
• Prior authorization requirements for Home Health/Private Duty Nursing services for Nebraska Medicaid Clients enrolled in fee-for-service Medicaid.
• Multi-drug resistant organisms (MDROs) in the home and community.

ICD-9 CM Coding

NAHCHA provides coding training to help meet the needs of home health staff.

• Basic Coding serves an introduction to the basic skills of ICD-9-CM coding for home health staff.
• Beyond Basics teaches individuals how to properly sequence cases with multiple diseases and disciplines. The class builds onto the basic classes and will cover the most common diagnoses in home health including the array of topics that are tested in the HCS-D certification exam.
• Advanced Coding is an interactive coding session involving intermediate to difficult coding situations. Attendees code scenarios and identify coding guidelines and key points illustrated with the situations. It also provides an opportunity for attendees to ask their most difficult coding questions and situations.

Legislative and Regulatory Updates

The number of legislative and regulatory issues impacting home health agencies at the national and state levels continues to grow. NAHCHA helps equip members with information and strategies that can be used in their agencies. Recent topics have included discussion of:

• Provisions of health care reform legislation as it relates to home health agencies, and other CMS projects that will impact home health.
• How to be proactive in addressing legislative issues impacting agencies and patients.
• Meaningful use of Health Information Technology (HIT).
• How the Nebraska Health Information Initiative (NeHii) can improve quality of care.
• Why being involved in legislative efforts matters to Nebraska home health agencies and their clients.
• Implementation of one health information exchange (HIE) in Nebraska.
• Medicaid vision for Nebraska.

OASIS-C

NAHCHA hosts OASIS-C Conferences to help enhance homecare clinician knowledge of OASIS-C for improved assessment and development of plan of care for individual patients, and improve homecare clinician knowledge of CMS OASIS-C guidance. Some of the topics discussed during the OASIS-C conferences include:

• Various reports generated by OASIS data.
• Critical OASIS time points and details for accuracy.
• CMS guidance accuracy related to living arrangements, available assistance and ability related to sensory status.
• Steps to accurately ascertain patient ability related to respiratory status, cardiac status, elimination status and neuro/behavioral status.
• Key interview and assessment strategies to obtain accurate OASIS answers related to ADLs, IADLs, prior function ability and fall risk.
• Critical strategies for accurate medication assessment and management.
• Considerations for OASIS accuracy related to case management, therapy need and emergent care.
• Steps to take to monitor and control supply usage.

Private Duty Care

At a recent teleconference, participants learned:

• What constitutes private duty services.
• The importance of private duty services as an augmentation to skilled home care.
• The steps needed to start a private duty program.
• How private duty services and operations fit into a skilled agency business model.

Wound Care

NAHCHA offers chronic wounds assessment training to help participants identify layers of the skin, learn about proper care of skin and feet to prevent skin breakdown and infection, and discuss wound care algorithm for existing wounds.