Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDP Clinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare CMS posted the official version of the RAI User’s Manual, v1.17.1after business hours on Wednesday, September 18, 2019.  Providers were given the draft version in May of this year so that they could begin preparing for the updated Item Set as well as PDPM reimbursement…… Continue reading BREAKING NEWS: CMS Posts Final Version of RAI Manual for October 2019

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDP Clinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare The next CMS Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNF)/Long Term Care (LTC) Open Door Forum scheduled for: Date:  Thursday, September 19, 2019 Start Time:  2:00 PM – 3:00 PM Eastern Time (ET); Please dial-in at least 15 minutes before call start time. Conference Leaders: Todd Smith &…… Continue reading CMS Schedules Next SNF/LTC Open Door Forum

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDP Clinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare Late in the afternoon of September 6, 2019, CMS posted an update to Appendix Q – Core Guidelines for Determining Immediate Jeopardy, effective immediately. The 6-page update is part of CMS Transmittal 192.  CMS has revised guidance to reinsert language referring criminal acts to law…… Continue reading Revisions to State Operations Manual (SOM), Appendix Q

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDP Clinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare CMS posted the updated MDS 3.0 Quality Measures User’s Manual – V12.1 on Wednesday, September 4, 2019.  The 110-page manual is effective October 1, 2019.  The MDS 3.0 QM User’s Manual V12.1 contains detailed specifications for the MDS 3.0 quality measures (QM) and supersedes V12.0…… Continue reading MDS 3.0 Quality Measures and SNF QRP Measures Manuals Updated

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDP Clinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare CMS posted updated PDPM resources on Friday afternoon, August 30, 2019. Five (5) Fact Sheets were updated and are now found in .zip format.  Once you open a file, select the redline version to see what’s different (thank you CMS – much appreciated): Concurrent and…… Continue reading CMS Updates PDPM Resources

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDP Clinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare The Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a 40-page report last week (August 21, 2019) that assessed 11 of 12 states that conducted background checks on prospective LTC employees during 2017 and 2018. “Background checks are an important safety measure that can help protect the…… Continue reading Latest OIG Report: Background Check Program for LTC Providers

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDP Clinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare During this afternoon’s CMS Understanding Your SNF VBP Program Performance Score Report call, it was announced provider’s SNF VBP annual performance reports were placed in CASPER today.  Be sure to retrieve your 1st year of program performance report and review it carefully.  Correction requests to…… Continue reading Check CASPER Reports Now for Your SNF VBP Performance Report!

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDP Clinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare CMS has updated the Appendix B list of State RAI Coordinators, RAI Coordinator Panel Members, MDS Automation Coordinators and Regional Office Contacts.  The list is actually pre-dated for August 29, 2019. For the first time ever, CMS has provided a separate Change List for Appendix…… Continue reading Appendix B of the RAI Manual Updated Including New Feature

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDP Clinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare CMS updated the MLN Fact Sheet: Skilled Nursing Facility 3-Day Rule Billing to help providers and billers navigate the 3-day rule.  The 8-page document was updated in July 2019.  This resource has a lot of information that you need to be aware of so be…… Continue reading Confused About Billing and the 3-Day Rule? CMS Has a Resource for You

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDP Clinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare CMS held a second training session (1st was in early May in Kansas City) on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.  Econometrica/CMS announced that there were 300 attendees live in Baltimore with 2,350 online on Tuesday, August 13th (no numbers were provided for Wednesday).  The…… Continue reading CMS SNF QRP Training Program Materials and More