Behind the Scenes of the Five Star Quality Rating Program

Today was the last day to attend a very informational seminar "Behind the Scenes of the Five Star Quality Rating Program" presented by WHCA. The tour started in Eau Claire traveled to Appleton and ended in Brookfield, WI. There was great attendance at all of the locations. Many attendees were very interested in figuring out why they received the rating they did by the state surveyors. This class also focused on how to be proactive in improving a facility's survey score.

As there are three different sections to a state survey- health survey, staffing, and quality measures. Pat Boyer described to the audience how to calculate their scoring in each section by providing a case study and then giving the audience the time to try it on a worksheet.

After having time to work through sample problems the class was presented with more information to help make the best of a survey situation.

Adminstrator Breakfast with Michael Peer, CPA

Understanding Financial Statements without being an Accountant

June 23rd, 2009 @ 7:30am we had our monthly Administrator Breakfast series. We enjoyed a continental breakfast for the first 15 minutes. Michael Peer, CPA from Kolb & Co was the guest speaker. He spoke on the basics of accounting principles. Explaining the four financial statements; Balance Sheet Income Statement, Statement of Cash Flow and Statment of Changes in Equity in detail. After his 30 minute presentation he took questions from our attendees. The attendees had really great questions that provoked great discussion among the group.

Thank you to all who attended and we look forward to seeing you in September!

Welcome Joy Jordan!!

Last month, Boyer & Associates was pleased to add Joy Jordan to our staff. Joy comes to us with extensive experience in the compliance world. Joy has most recently been a Federal surveyor and passed the SMQT (Surveyor Minimum Qualification Test in 2007. Joy will be assisting clients with compliance concerns and education. In addiiton, Joy will be coordinating our efforts at the Boyer Executive Development Center. Please join me in welcoming Joy and come by to meet her at the upcoming WHCA and WAHSA conferences.

Five-Star Quality Rating System

On December 18, 2008, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) implemented the Five-Star Program. This system has already created a lot of confusion in the industry. The basis for the program is information from:

• Annual Surveys -three most recent surveys and revisits
• Staffing - Acuity Adjusted
• Quality Measures - 10 of 19 utilized for comparison

Although national provider groups have expressed their concerns about the validity and the value of the information in assessing quality provided in facility, we need to understand what the public is seeing. You need to learn all the details of this new system. The following resources are available:

Technical User Guide: http://www.cms.hhs.gov/CertificationandCompliance/Downloads/usersguide.pdf

Nursing Home Compare Website:

www.medicare.gov/NHCompare

Watch for news of a Boyer & Associates training session coming soon on the Five-Star Nursing Home Rating System. In the mean time, please call Pat Boyer with any questions. Boyer & Associates, LLC has an acuity based staffing model available for facilities.

Boyer Development Center Open House

Our Open House in November was a great success. We had lots of visitors to our new training center and lots of food and refreshments. We kicked off our Development Center with our first workshop on Investigations with 16 participants. We have since had a successful first Web Ex session. Our 2009 1st quarter schedule is now posted and ready to go! We are so excited about our new educational offerings and look forward to working with facilities across the country. Let us know what you think, give us suggestions of workshops you'd like to see and join us in a session soon. Pat

AHCA 2008 Convention

Come see the Boyer and Associates, LLC Clinical Team at the 59th Annual AHCA/NCAL Convention & Exposition, Nashville, TN, USA on October 5-8, 2008.
Two of the Boyer Nurse Consultants are presenting two educational sessions:

Differentiating Ulcer Types on Tuesday, October 7, 2008 at 10:30am-11:30am. The presentation will be provided by Evonne Fillinger, BS, RN, WCC, Clinical Operations and Pat Boyer, MSM, RN, NHA, President and Operations Consultant.

Standards of Clinical Practice: Nursing vs. Physician Perspective on Wednesday, October 8, 2008 at 8:30am-10:30am. The speakers for this presentation include: Gail Robison RN, RAC-CT, Clinical Nurse Consultant along with Bonnie Wirfs MD, CMD, FACP, Geriatric Medicine Physician and Pat Boyer, MSM, RN, NHA, President and Operations Consultant.

We hope to see you all there. For further information about the conference you can look to this webpage: http://www.ahcaconvention.org/

WAHSA conference photo

Photo from the fall WAHSA conference