On Thursday, March 3, WHCA/WiCAL staff participated in a quarterly meeting with BAL and Wisconsin's long-term care provider associations. Attending from BAL were Director Dan Perron and Deputy Director Kathy Lyons. Also on the call was DQA Deputy Director Alfred Johnson, as well as staff from DPH.
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Join President & CEO Mark Parkinson and the AHCA/NCAL team for a member webinar this
Friday, March 4 at 12:00 PM CST to discuss the details of President Biden’s proposals for nursing homes presented during the State of the Union address and the Association’s response.
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning people not to use certain ACON Laboratories COVID-19 tests. People should not use the ACON Laboratories test named “Flowflex SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Rapid Test (Self-Testing)”. This test has not been authorized, cleared, or approved by the FDA for distribution or use in the United States. The FDA is concerned about the risk of false results when using this unauthorized test.
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No doubt by now, you have heard about the Biden Administration’s comprehensive nursing home reform proposal: Perhaps you watched or listened to the State of the Union message earlier this week in which President Biden alluded to reform; perhaps you read about it in the newspaper or online; perhaps you have discussed it with a colleague.
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The UW School of Medicine and Public Health program
announced earlier this week that it is providing $500,000 for the effort, doubling the total funding for the incentive program that was announced in December 2021. The state Department of Health Services provided the initial funds.
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The
2022 Direct Care Workforce Survey is available for providers to complete. Responses are due Friday, March 18th. Providers should complete this survey based on all direct care workforce payments received since June 2021.
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Registration for WHCA/WiCAL's Annual Spring Conference & Expo is now open! Spring Conference will be a fun, engaging, and in-person experience for attendees with opportunities to network with long-term care professionals held at the Hyatt Regency & KI Convention Center in Green Bay, Wisconsin from April 6-8, 2022.
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This week, we are pleased to introduce you to Raven. As Raven explains in the video, "I think it is just in my nature to be a caretaker. I love taking care of people."
https://vimeo.com/672429796
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An AHCA/NCAL-led workforce-related coalition that represents thousands of health and long-term care services and supports providers and stakeholders that care for those most in need across the country recently sent letters to the members of Congress in the Senate and House of Representatives that introduced the Provider Relief Fund (PRF) Improvement Act (S. 3611/H.R. 5963)
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The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) recently announced an apprenticeship grant funding opportunity,
Apprenticeship Building America Grant Program. DOL is offering apprenticeship grant funding totaling $113 million to pay for worker apprenticeship programs, in an effort to bolster its
registered apprenticeship program.
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The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) wants to make it easy for nursing homes and skilled nursing facilities to track and report COVID-19 vaccination information.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced recently that they have changed the metrics used to determine personal and community COVID-19 prevention measures based on community spread. It is important to note that this change
does not apply in health care settings because the consequences of spread and risk of triggering outbreaks is greater.
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The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) is making more than $560 million in Provider Relief Fund (PRF) Phase 4 General Distribution payments this week. Providers should have received an email notification on Thursday, February 24, if their application was among those processed in this latest batch.
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The American Health Care Association is pleased to announce that National Skilled Nursing Care Week (NSNCW) products and planning guide are now available at
nsncw.org.
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This webinar will provide an overview of the blended online nurse assistant course.
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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has authorized the use of federal Civil Money Penalty (CMP) Reinvestment funds so federally certified nursing homes may purchase portable fans and portable room air cleaners with high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA, H-13 or -14) filters to increase or improve air quality.
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AHCA/NCAL recently released the 2022 education product guide, which features all ahcancalED offerings in the new year, including the Revenue Cycle Management Academy, Behavioral Health & Trauma Informed Care, Gero Nurse Prep, the Infection Preventionist Specialized Training, and much, much more!
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Access to a physician via telemedicine can empower skilled nursing facility nurses to treat more residents in place, avoiding a stressful return to the emergency department. But connecting with a physician on video can be uncomfortable, and most nurses have never received telemedicine training. What conditions warrant a telemedicine visit? What is the best way to prepare for a telemedicine assessment? What types of conditions can be treated with the support of a telemedicine physician? And, most importantly, how can you train your frontline nurses to embrace telemedicine to deliver better care for residents when a doctor is not in the building? Get your questions answered and find out how you can support frontline nurses to partner with remote physicians to deliver optimal care.
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The Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) is strongly encouraging nursing homes to report the number of skilled nursing facility (SNF) beds available in their location each day to EMResource as part of a bed tracking system. With the daily reports from nursing homes, DHS hopes the “SNF bed tracker” will provide a real time picture of bed availability across the state, which hospitals can use as they work to identify potential post-acute care placements for their patients.
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