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29

For Immediate Release: NC Court of Appeals Rules in Favor of Home Care Patients

Tim Rogers posted on March 29, 2010 16:10

 
 


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:      Tim Rogers, CEO
Phone:          919-848-3450
Fax:              919-848-2355
E-mail:         timrogers@homeandhospicecare.org

  NC Court of Appeals Rules in Favor of Home Care Patients

 
March 29, 2010.  Late Friday, the North Carolina Court of Appeals granted two Petitions filed by the Association for Home & Hospice Care of North Carolina (AHHC) on behalf of 37,000 Medicaid PCS patients.  As a result, North Carolina’s Medicaid Agency continues to be barred from implementing a paper review and mathematical formula or other methodologies to reduce personal care hours of services to the elderly, disabled, and chronically ill, who are poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, and thus rely upon Personal Care Services to remain safely in their own home. This Court of Appeals decision extends indefinitely the Temporary Stay that was put in place on March 16th.  The Court also considered the Association’s claim that the recent Order of Superior Court Judge Don Stephens, which had reversed the decision entered by Administrative Law Judge Don Overby, was erroneous.
 
Tim Rogers, the CEO of the Association, commented on this new Court ruling:
 
“This is a major victory on behalf of 37,000 elderly, disabled and chronically ill North Carolinians as well as registered nurses, home care aides and family caregivers. To have a Medicaid bureaucrat in Raleigh decide the fate of care of citizens using a math formula rather than a review by a Registered Nurse or Physician is just wrong. Home Care and Hospice is more preferred and more cost effective than care in an institution and saves the taxpayers of North Carolina millions of dollars.  The Association is dedicated to putting patients and their families first and is very pleased that the NC Medicaid continues to be barred from these unlawful actions. This is a great day for Home Care Services.”
 
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26

Our Member Nurses are astonished, appalled and aghast - let's turn around bad policy for patients

Tim Rogers posted on March 26, 2010 13:43

"Nurses, today we must lift our heads from the bedside and recognize the challenging environment we are currently in and do something about it. Our profession and our patients can wait no longer – nurses are the bedrock of sound nursing policy and nurses must be heard. Without your help, bad policy decisions will continue to hammer away at the home care and hospice services you hold dear."
          Sherry Thomas, BSN, MPH, AHHC Senior VP, Member AHHC CAREPAC – Capitol Ring

Dear Nurse Advocate:

Did you know that there are over 7,000 nurses in North Carolina that specifically work in home care, home health and hospice? This many nurses could be an influential and powerful advocacy for health services in the home. Most legislators and policy makers have had the opportunity to receive services from a nurse at some point in their lives. 

And, the Gallop Poll last year for the 8th straight year found nurses the most trusted profession - over physicians, pharmacists and way over politicians!

But something is wrong in North Carolina when State Government's actions indicate that they do not trust nurses!

Quite frankly, we are in a time when nurses find themselves and the services they provide pushed aside. We are also in a time when State Government does not trust you the nurse to make ethical and clinically sound decisions for your patients. For example, State Government does not trust registered nurses in a Medicaid program for the elderly and disabled to accurately assess a patient's need for assistance with a bath. Currently these home care nurses provide this assessment at $14.16 an hour. Instead, State Government wants to use an independent assessor who was awarded a no bid contract to provide the assessment at nearly $250 a visit. Isn't this a slap in the face of home care nurses? And an expensive one at that!

But there is no need to feel helpless! We need collectively to lift our heads from the bedside and recognize the environment we are currently in and do something about it!

We need "nurse friendly" and "home care/home health/hospice friendly" legislators and here is why:

  • When State Government proposed to cut Medicaid hospice services last year in the State budget the nurses were astonished! This cannot happen again to Hospice services.

  • When an unfriendly legislator asked for patient data by their race before proposing to cut the home care program (which largely serves minorities) by $40 million dollars the nurses were appalled! This cannot happen again to home care patients.

  • When a daughter in her sixties (still working full time) testified in court with tears in her eyes that her mother in her 80's could not stay home without her home care aide’s assistance, nurses were aghast that the State had landed this family in this situation. (The patient had been a domestic all her life and had no safety net other than Medicaid.) This cannot happen again to poor patients and families.

How do we make a difference and turn around these bad policy decisions?

Join the CAREPAC -the political action committee of the Association for Home & Hospice Care of North Carolina (AHHC).

We need your help to turn around these bad clinical policy decisions! Click Here to download the membership form and join CAREPAC today and please also invite a colleague to join as well! Your $50 contribution or more can make a true difference!

Please consider joining by April 7th, 2010!
World Health Day 

Sincerely,

Tim Rogers, CEO
Tracy Colvard, Director of Government Affairs & Public Policy

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24

Home & Hospice Care License Plate

Tim Rogers posted on March 24, 2010 16:17

 
Home Care License Plate:  We must have 300 applications in hand before NCDMV will begin to manufacture our special ‘Home Care’ License plate.  We are about two-thirds of the way there and need your help!
 
To promote Home Care AHHC is willing to pay everyone’s first year fee –  until our goal is reached! The DMV application can be found on our website at www.homeandhospicecare.org.  Click here to download the application form directly. Or call us at (919) 848-3450 and apply for your ‘Home Care & Hospice’ license plate.
Sincerely,
 
Tim Rogers, CEO

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04

NC Home Health Agencies Rank 2nd in the Nation - Quality Project

Tim Rogers posted on March 04, 2010 10:56

 
 


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:      Tim Rogers, CEO
Phone:          919-848-3450
Fax:              919-848-2355
E-mail:         timrogers@homeandhospicecare.org

 
 
North Carolina Home Health Agencies Rank 2nd in the Nation in Participation in National Campaign to

Reduce Avoidable Hospitalizations and Improve Medication Management
 
Raleigh, NC (March 4, 2010) – Not quite two months into the national home health quality improvement campaign kicked off on January 13th at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) headquarters in Baltimore, MD, North Carolina Home Health Agencies have indicated their dedication to improving the health status of North Carolinians and are ranked 2nd in the nation in the percentage of agencies participating in the National Campaign.
 
Known as the Home Health Quality Improvement (HHQI) National Campaign, the initiative is a grassroots movement designed to unite home health stakeholders and multiple health care settings under a shared vision of reducing avoidable hospitalizations and improving medication management. These goals will be accomplished through the distribution of tools, resources, guidelines, information and best practice education to home health agencies across the country that agree to participate.
 
The Association for Home & Hospice Care of North Carolina (AHHC) is serving as a Local Area Network for Excellence (LANE) for NC.  LANEs are stakeholder organizations that serve as the central hubs of activity in the HHQI National Campaign. These key partners create campaign awareness, provide participant encouragement and facilitate communication among agencies. LANEs also facilitate agency recruitment.  
 
“We are committed to working in this partnership with CMS to improve clinical outcomes for patients and to prevent unnecessary hospitalizations. We are very proud that NC Home Health Agencies are national leaders in this endeavor.” said Tim Rogers, CEO of AHHC.
 
More information about the campaign can be found on the campaign’s Web site at www.homehealthquality.org.
 
The Association for Home & Hospice Care of NC is a non-profit trade association representing home health care agencies, hospice care agencies and facilities, and licensed home care agencies.
 
For more information about AHHC, please visit www.homeandhospicecare.org.
 
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