Abt Associates and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) will host an in-person conference Collaborating on the Care of Residents with Substance Use Disorders in Long-Term Care on June 27th from 9AM – 3PM at the DCU Center in Worcester.

CMS will host a National Stakeholder Call with CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure on Tuesday, April 25, 2023 at 1:00 p.m. ET. Click here to register for the call.

The Mass Chapter of ACHCA invites all practicing administrators to attend their listening session, Echoes from Administrators virtually on Thursday, May 4th at 2:00 pm for one hour.

This week AHCA’s CMS Requirements of Participation focus F-tag of the week is Activities of Daily Living.

In the wake of the expiring public health emergency and persistent capacity constraints within healthcare facilities, a coalition of leading organizations is coming together to promote proactive care decision-making by calling on patients to designate a healthcare agent and complete a health care proxy document.

Identification of individuals infected or colonized with Candida auris is increasing in Massachusetts. Ongoing efforts to contain the spread of C. auris in healthcare settings rely on primary infection control measures and screening of contacts to identify C. auris colonization.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced that the Notifications of Enforcement Discretion issued under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act during the COVID-19 public health emergency will expire at 11:59 pm on May 11, 2023, due to the expiration of the COVID-19 public health emergency.

Mass Senior Care has long supported and advocated for the conversion of the Medicaid MMQ payment system to the Federal MDS acuity system thereby eliminating the administrative burden of operating 2 acuity systems and to better capture the cost of resident care, which will become effective on October 1, 2023.

The House Ways and Means (HWM) Committee this week released its FY 2024 budget recommendation totaling $56.2 billion. We are pleased to report that the Committee’s recommendation includes MSCA’s funding request proposing a $112 million increase over current reimbursement rates.