CMSA Annual is less than week away! If you're registered, view our recent blog posts to learn more about what you need to know before you go (link below). If you're not registered yet but would still like to attend, please do! Our opportunities for continuing education, hand-picked keynotes, pre-conference events and opening night activities you'll find only in Long Beach. Remember: CMSA members receive a $150 discount on the cost of registration, and groups of three or more registering together receive a $100 per person discount. We'll see you next week!

 

CMSA’s Career & Knowledge Pathways (CKP) educational program fills a longstanding gap in case management education. Theoretical content has been available for many years, but practical instruction of basic concepts of case management, as well as skills opportunities, have been left to the individual case manager and employers to determine and deliver. These circumstances have led to great variation in educational quality, content, and case management skill sets across the health care continuum. The debut CKP course, CMSA Standards of Practice: The Foundation for Professional Excellence in Coordination of Care Across the Continuum, was developed by thought leaders in case management to contribute to the basic understanding of the standards that govern your practice. To view the CKP gaming simulation in action, test your Standards skills and download program information, click below. CMSA members receive a program discount!

 

CMSA's Annual Conference & Expo is headed to Austin, TX, June 27-29, 2017! Additional details are coming soon; in the meantime, register for email updates to get the latest conference news.

 

As you likely know, the Case Management Society of America (CMSA) — the world's largest and most influential professional case management organization— works to provide case/care managers, social workers and other healthcare practitioners across the care continuum with resources to be more efficient, effective and competitive. However, did you know that over the past 25 years CMSA has done important industry work such as developing the Standards of Practice for Case Management and working on title protection for case management? If you already know these facts, you are probably already an official member of CMSA's growing and diverse community. If not, we'd love to provide you with additional resources to help you achieve your professional goals.

 

Comprehensive Motivational Interviewing Training for Health Professionals E-Learning Program

Supported by funding from NACDS FOUNDATION, a new eight-hour e-learning program, Comprehensive Motivational Interviewing Training for Health Professionals, is now available. This training uses a sense-making approach (Berger BA and Villaume WA, Motivational Interviewing for Health Care Professionals: A Sensible Approach, APhA Press, Washington, D.C., 2013) to motivational interviewing. The program can be completed within a three-month window and is approved for 8 hours of nurse, pharmacist and physician continuing education credit. It is based on the authors' 25 years of experience in teaching motivational interviewing to health care professionals. It costs $225.

CMSA members can receive a 10 percent rebate check by e-mailing their receipt to bbergerconsulting@gmail.com along with their mailing address. Go to: http://nacds.learnercommunity.com/ to register. For more information, contact education@nacds.org. To view an excerpt from the program, follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX4XXbikpQM

 

Pat Stricker, RN, MEd Senior Vice President, TCS Healthcare Technologies Remember the days leading up to the ICD-10 transition, when experts were predicting large-scale disruptions to the entire healthcare system? The "doom and gloom" predictions were similar to those of the "Y2K" (year 2000) transition in 1999. However, when the ICD-10 launch finally occurred on October 1, 2015, it was easier than many had expected. The ICD-10 transition did not create volumes of rejected claims, financial losses, cash flow problems, physician retirements, or chaotic coding that healthcare experts predicted. There were reports of increased claim denials, reimbursement delays, decreased productivity, and some provider issues, but the problems were not as large or significant as originally predicted. A study by the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) and the AHIMA Foundation, one of the leading organizations tracking the transition, found that the ICD-10 transition showed minimal effects. And the Cooperative Exchange, which represents the healthcare clearinghouse industry, described the ICD-10 transition as a "non-event", just like Y2K.

 

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on June 6 released a final rule improving how Medicare pays Accountable Care Organizations in the Medicare Shared Savings Program for delivering better patient care. Medicare is moving away from paying for each service a physician provides towards a system that rewards physicians for coordinating with each other. Accountable Care Organizations are a major part of that transition, rewarding providers that deliver high-quality, efficient, and coordinated care for patients. Medicare bases Accountable Care Organizations’ payments on a variety of factors, including whether the Accountable Care Organization can deliver high-quality care at a reasonable cost. The final rule should help more Accountable Care Organizations successfully participate in the Medicare Shared Savings Program by improving the shared savings payment methodology and providing a new participation option for certain Accountable Care Organizations to move to the more advanced tracks of the program. Source: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

 

-Part of a network of 10 regional facilities expanding U.S. ability to respond to outbreaks of severe, highly infectious diseases- Putting in place the final piece of a regional network to treat patients infected with severe, highly infectious diseases, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has selected a health department and associated partner hospital to serve the region covering Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada and the Pacific island territories and freely associated states. Following the June 14 selection, there now is a regional Ebola and other special pathogen treatment center designated for each of HHS’s 10 regions nationwide. The California Department of Public Health, in partnership with Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, has been selected as the regional treatment center covering the final region. Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

 

"Navigating the Future Course of Case Management" November 1, 2016 - East Lansing, MI MSU Kellogg Hotel & Conference Center Provided by the MSU College of Nursing in collaboration with the MSU School of Social Work, the 2016 event features keynote speaker CMSA Executive Director, Cheri Lattimer, RN, BSN, presenting the keynote, "Why We Get Off Course and What We Must Do." Concurrent session highlights include topics such as: *Managing Chronic Health Conditions in the Elderly *Medication Adherence *Emotional Resilience for the Case Management Professional *Ethical Issues *Opiate Overuse: Care Coordination Strategies The early registration discount fee is available prior to September 16, 2016. For further information, call 800.605.6424 and selection option 3.