By Wendy Melton Abbott, Team Leader, Big Bend Hospice As a hospice nurse, I often find that when families learn all that hospice care has to offer, they are both relieved and concerned: relieved that the comprehensive list of…
Hospice Coverage Explained
The Hospice House Difference By Patricia Klein, Sr. Public Relations Specialist, Good Shepherd Hospice and Abby Vandegrift, Communications & Policy Coordinator, Florida Hospice & Palliative Care Association Judy Goll will always remember October 22, 2011. Even though doctors had…
Television viewers are afforded a rare glimpse into the lives of hospice patients in the one-hour special program, “Hospice: Something More” premiering Thursday, November 7 at 9pm ET on RLTV. The program was produced by Hospice Foundation of America and…
by Roxanne Riley, Executive Director, LifePath Hospice For years, state and federal lawmakers have tried to find an answer to escalating health care costs. At the same time, patients and families want access to quality health care that is both…
By Joyce Baldrica, President and CEO of the VNA of the Treasure Coast and Nightingale Private Duty Nursing Hospice care offers the services you want. What stands in the way of more people choosing hospice care, is limited awareness of…
Hospice is a special kind of care provided for those at the end of life, and Governor Rick Scott has declared this November as Florida Hospice Month. November is an opportunity for hospice providers statewide to raise awareness about hospice…
By: Abby Vandegrift, Communications & Policy Coordinator for Florida Hospice & Palliative Care Association This October, Florida Hospice & Palliative Care Association (FHPCA) celebrates its 30 year anniversary of dedicated service to hospice care in Florida. Established as Florida Hospices, Inc….
By: Paul A. Ledford, CAE, CHA, Executive Director of Florida Hospice & Palliative Care Association When you think of hospice, do you think of life? Chances are probably not. Often people think of hospice as a place you…
By Joyce Baldrica, President and CEO of the VNA of the Treasure Coast and Nightingale Private Duty Nursing In life we prepare for everything… college, marriage, children, and retirement. Despite the conversations we have for these important milestones, rarely…
By: Vicki Arant, RN, BSN, Vice President of Clinical Services, Hospice of the Comforter When someone is diagnosed with a terminal illness, where do they and their loved ones turn for support? A hospice cares for patients and families on…
By: Tiffany Campion, Director of Communications, Covenant Hospice It has been said that human beings are the only living beings that have knowledge of and can anticipate their own death. Even if that is true, most of us just…
News
Florida Hospice and Palliative Care Association thanks our NEW Corporate Patron members as of May 2023! Thanks for supporting the mission of FHPCA and hospice programs in Florida! To learn more on how to become a Corporate Patron member click…
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Part 1 of the series will focus on understanding the regulations, the types of deficiencies, including condition level deficiencies and immediate jeopardy, and how to avoid them. It will also drill down on regulatory compliance, including how to prioritize noncompliant areas, assess your agency, write action plans, involve and educate staff, and develop an effective QAPI program.
There will be a brief review of the data-driven information on Care Compare, CAHPS, etc. to explain how to tie those into your QAPI program to ensure compliance and enhance quality and efficiency of care.
After completing training, your volunteers should be fully prepared for the work they face. Most programs utilize a standardized curriculum that meets Medicare guidelines, yet those topics are meant to be “minimum standards” and miss some very important issues and necessary skills.
This webinar will explore several critical skills, including setting and maintaining personal and professional boundaries, the critical importance of supervising volunteer boundaries, volunteers’ part in suicidal ideation intervention, their role in assessing and providing grief and loss support and guidance, and other important dynamics.
Your operating model is a three-legged stool: providing care, business development (patient acquisition), and financial performance. Each leg is comprised of many systems and procedures. How well these systems and procedures function drives performance throughout the organization.
With this webinar, you’ll learn the essential elements of each leg. More importantly, you’ll be able to identify the means and methods to improve the systems and procedures that support these critical elements. You’ll walk away with practical approaches to strengthen your operating model, serve more people, and grow.
Part 5 of this five-part compliance series will review the CoP requirement for bereavement counseling as a core hospice service. It will cover key regulations for bereavement care and provide recommendations for best and preferred practices and program structure. Who is qualified to provide these services? Who will receive these services?
Setting up a bereavement plan of care as well as how to implement and measure your bereavement program for effectiveness will be addressed. Bereavement care is not just something a hospice agency implements upon death. It requires ongoing assessments, and many agencies fall short. This webinar will identify all areas where bereavement risk can be identified, discussed, and addressed.
Mismanaged, misplaced, or missing medical and business records are more than a nuisance. They are a liability. You are required to preserve, protect, produce, and purge records, including PHI, EPHI, personally identifiable information (PII), and other business-critical information in compliance with HIPAA, federal legislation, state data breach notification laws, and e-discovery guidelines. Best practices call for strategic records management programs, complete with comprehensive records retention policy and procedures.
Failure to safeguard PHI and EPHI could lead to HIPAA investigations, financial penalties, and disgruntled patients. Mismanagement of business records, including PII and electronically stored information (ESI), could trigger costly lawsuits, damaged reputations, and decreased revenues.
Attend this program to learn best practices-based strategies for effective records management. You’ll leave with a package of valuable tools, including a sample records retention policy, record retention guidelines, and an informative whitepaper to help your organization manage records, minimize risks, and maximize compliance.
This webinar will provide an understanding of the fundamental principles for operating hospice inpatient units and delve into the core elements that form the bedrock of operational success, emphasizing the significance of strict discipline and focus. It will explore the operational strategy for a general inpatient unit, dissecting key components such as staffing, training, patient-centered care, and integration with other care levels. Real-world case studies will provide insights into successful implementation.
If you work in a hospice environment long enough, you will hear a bunch of acronyms related to quality scores. Ones like HQRP, HIS, CAHPS, and SHP, for example. For those who are not quality improvement professionals but who work in this area every day, retaining and understanding all this information can seem daunting.
This webinar will break down and explain the components of quality scores and explore how access to and understanding of this data can lead to quality improvement that is patient and family centered and effective.
You’ll learn how to survey the EP program and QAPI, including how to tie information from the QAPI program to what is found on home visits and in records. Discover what to look for in staff education, competency, and personnel files, how to interview staff and managers, and the specifics on how to include a home visit in a survey. This program will address how to review clinical records with particular attention to common deficiencies.
In this engaging webinar on active listening, participants will explore the profound impact of this crucial communication skill in the workplace. Through examples and practical techniques, the session will highlight how active listening fosters better understanding, strengthens team dynamics, and enhances overall collaboration.
Attendees will gain valuable insights into how mastering active listening can lead to improved problem-solving, increased productivity, and a more positive and inclusive work environment.
Hospice documentation should paint a very clear picture of a patient’s eligibility from admission through discharge. Many agencies are surprised to learn their poor documentation does not support eligibility when suddenly tasked with an “additional documentation review” and recoupment of Medicare dollars.
This presentation will explain how to effectively audit hospice documentation, review the highest-ranking focus areas, and address what should appear on every hospice documentation audit tool. From technical requirements to clinical requirements, this presentation will take you through an effective hospice documentation audit step-by-step. It will also describe how to identify areas of risk so they can be incorporated into performance improvement.
While billing the Medicare benefit and getting paid is relatively easy, there is always a risk of review and denial. Webinar participants will learn to define and outline the response to any level of medical review, including TPE, UPIC, RA, SMRC, and OIG audits.
This session will also cover the data analysis agencies need to review to ensure their medical review risk is limited. Don’t be caught in the position of believing that everything is okay. This session will also cover the new Special Focus Program (SFP) for poor performers. Attendees will learn how to ensure their documentation is accurate and will be able to successfully endure medical review of their charts.
