Category: Current Affairs

Take Action: Begin the NHSC Site Recertification Process

August 18, 2023

Take Action: Begin the NHSC Site Recertification Process

It’s time to recertify! National Health Service Corps (NHSC wants to remind you that sites must recertify in order to extend NHSC-approved site status beyond this calendar year.

As an approved site, your clinicians can apply for the NHSC Loan Repayment Programs, while you take advantage of recruitment benefits, such as the Health Workforce Connector and HRSA Virtual Job Fairs.

It is recommended that the recertification process is started early – the deadline is Thursday, October 12 at 11:59 p.m. E.T.

NHSC has a variety of helpful resources to ensure a seamless application process. From the Site Reference Guide to the Site Agreement, everything is right at your fingertips.

Save the Date: Site Recertification Webinar

When: Thursday, August 24, 12:00 – 1:30 p.m. ET

Join on Zoom

Contact Info for Questions/Problems

Division of Regional Operations State/Territorial Lead

Your State/Territorial Primary Care Office

Missouri Department of Health & Senior Services

Office of Primary Care and Rural Health (ORHPC)

Phone: (573) 751-6441

Fax: (573) 522-8146

Email: ORHPCinfo@health.mo.gov

You may also submit a question via the Customer Service Portal.

Problems logging into the Customer Service Portal:

Contact the Customer Care Center at 1-800-221-9393

Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. ET (excluding federal holidays)

 

 

HRSA Needs Rural Reviewers for Grant Applications

August 10, 2023

HRSA Needs Rural Reviewers for Grant Applications

The Health Resources Services Administration (HRSA) seeks rural reviewers for grant applications. If you have expertise in certain subjects, you may be able to evaluate grant applications.

How Reviewers are Chosen:

Reviewers are chosen based on their knowledge, education, and experience. They are also selected based on specific criteria in the HRSA Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO).

How to Become a Grant Reviewer:

If you work or have experience in health care, register via the Reviewer Recruitment Module (RRM).

HRSA looks for people with expertise in one of the following areas:

  • Behavioral health
  • Health workforce training
  • HIV/AIDS
  • Maternal and child health
  • Primary care delivery
  • Rural health
  • Working with or a member of underserved communities

Additional experience

  • Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA)
  • Lived experience
  • Health equity
  • Social determinants of health

HRSA is also interested in reviewers who have expertise in social, cultural, or health care issues of people in rural areas, migrants, or Native Americans.

What You Will Do:

  • Review eligible applications against published evaluation criteria
  • Input your scores and comments into an online portal, the Application Review Module (ARM)
  • Discuss your scores and evaluation with other reviewers

Compensation

Each non-federal participant is compensated

Quarterly Training Webinars:

Questions: Email HRSA for assistance at RRMTechAssistance@hrsa.gov

Learn More

Updates to Requirements for Buprenorphine Prescribing

August 10, 2023

Updates to Requirements for Buprenorphine Prescribing

As announced by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in January 2023, clinicians no longer need a federal waiver to prescribe buprenorphine for treatment of opioid use disorder. Clinicians will still be required to register with the federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to prescribe controlled medications.

Beginning on June 27, the DEA registration will require applicants – both new and renewing – to affirm they have completed a new, one-time, eight-hour training. Exceptions for the new training requirement are practitioners who are board certified in addiction medicine or addiction psychiatry, and those who graduated from a medical, dental, physician assistant, or advanced practice nursing school in the U.S. within five years of June 27, 2023.

Rural Health Clinics (RHCs) still have the opportunity to apply for a $3,000 payment on behalf of each provider who trained between January 1, 2019 and December 29, 2022 (when Congress eliminated the waiver requirement). Approximately $889,000 in program funding remains available for RHCs and will be paid on a first-come, first-served basis until funds are exhausted.

New Training Requirements for All DEA-Registered Providers

Send questions to: DATA2000WaiverPayments@hrsa.gov

Partnership for Quality Management (PQM) Seeks Rural Health Experts for Committees

August 10, 2023

Partnership for Quality Management (PQM) Seeks Rural Health Experts for Committees

New committees are being formed by Battelle, as contracted by CMS, to make recommendations on health care quality measurement. Rural health experts are sought for all PQM committees.

It takes diverse voices to drive PQM’s mission. PQM uses a consensus based process involving a variety of experts – clinicians, patients, measure experts, and health information technology specialists – to ensure informed and thoughtful endorsement reviews of quality performance measures.

Interested in learning more about joining a committee? Click Here

Committee Nominations:

Battelle staff conduct a review of committee member appointments annually, which includes internal re-calibration of membership, a call for nominations, and targeted outreach.

Any interested party may nominate themselves or another individual to a committee of interest once the nominations period is open.

Click Here to nominate yourself or another person

NRHA Webinars on Patient Surges, Utilizing Swing Beds

August 3, 2023

NRHA Webinars on Patient Surges, Utilizing Swing Beds

NRHA partner Relias, will host a webinar Thursday, August 10 at 2 p.m. CDT, on strategies and solutions for a sustainable health care workforce. Discover actionable strategies that have proven successful in combating the nursing shortage, improving nurse retention, and enhancing workforce engagement.

Speaker: Felicia Sadler, MJ, BSN, RN, CPHQ, LSSBB, VP of Quality at Relias

When: August 10, 2:00 – 3:00 PM CDT

Register Now

NRHA partner, Allevant, will host a webinar at 1 p.m. CDT, September 20 on swing bed culture and attention to wellness vital to rural health care. Transitional care makes available the full resources of the CAH and focuses on measured outcomes and evidence based processes to ensure patients get the best care possible.

When: Thursday, September 20, 1:00 – 2:00 p.m. CDT

Register Now

Click Here to View NRHA Today Newsletter

Now Accepting Applications: Virtual/Onsite Technical Assistance for Small Rural Hospitals and RHCs

July 14, 2023

Now Accepting Applications: Virtual/Onsite Technical Assistance for Small Rural Hospitals and RHCs

The Rural Healthcare Provider Transition Project (RHPTP) supported by FORHP and the National Rural Health Resource Center is now accepting applications for one year of virtual/onsite technical assistance for small rural hospitals and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) certified rural health clinics (RHCs).

Hospitals must meet all three eligibility requirements listed below; clinics must only meet the “rural area” requirement listed below:

  • “Eligible small rural hospital” is defined as a non-federal, short-term general acute care hospital that:
    • Is located in a rural area as defined in 42 U.S.C. 1395ww(d) and
    • Has 49 available beds or less, as reported on the hospital’s most recently filed Medicare Cost Report
  • “Rural area” is defined as either:
    • Located outside of a Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)
    • Located within a rural census tract of a MSA, as determined under the Goldsmith Modification or the rural Urban Commuting Areas
    • Is being treated as if being located in a rural area pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1395ww(d)(8)(E)
  • Eligible hospitals may be for-profit or not-for-profit, including faith-based. Hospitals in U.S. territories as well as tribally operated hospitals under Titles I and V of P.L. 93-638 are eligible to the extent that such hospitals meet the above criteria

Additional Requirements

  • Must not be a current participant in an advanced payment Model
  • Must be financially stable
  • Must be interested in and motivated to becoming part of an APM
  • Must, if a small rural hospital, be meeting the quality data reporting requirements of Inpatient Quality Reporting, Outpatient Quality Reporting or the Medicare Beneficiary Quality Improvement Project
  • Must not be a current participant in the Delta Region Community Health Systems Development Program, the Vulnerable Rural Hospital Project, the Small Rural Hospital Transition Project, or any other program that is duplicative in services

Applications are due August 15

Click Here to apply

Rural Horizons: Karriem Watson Dispels Rural Health Myths

July 13, 2023

Rural Horizons: Karriem Watson Dispels Rural Health Myths

The latest issue of NRHA’s Rural Horizons, the association’s quarterly magazine, is now available online featuring three new articles on timely topics including dispelling rural health research myths with All of Us Research Program Chief Engagement Officer Karriem Watson.

During his 20-year career in public health education and research, Watson has seen firsthand the power of community engagement. All of Us is a national initiative aimed at engaging more than one million people from diverse communities to share health data so researchers can advance precision medicine.

“When you make relationships and build partnerships that are authentic and based on trust and aligned and shared priorities, it dispels a lot of the myths that some populations ‘don’t want to participate’ in research,” Watson says.

Rural Horizons features articles carefully selected to engage and inform everyone working to improve rural health care. You can subscribe in print by becoming an NRHA member. Email the editors to submit an abstract for potential publication, get information on editorial content, or purchase issues.

Subscribe Here

Submit an Abstract

How Can We Change the Perception of ‘Flyover County?’

July 13, 2023

How Can We Change the Perception of ‘Flyover County?’

Thought leadership and highlighting innovation are crucial to the media strategy for Sioux Falls, S.D.-based Sanford Health, an NRHA member, helping change the perception that the upper Midwest is just “flyover country”.

NRHA recently launched the Faces of Rural Campaign to showcase the power of rural communities and shift the dialogue used to discuss and celebrate them.

You can share the faces of your rural community and the stories behind them on social media by using #FacesOfRural.

As an organization made up of diverse and passionate members and staff, NRHA is proud to lead the way in championing this effort.

Read Article

Faces of Rural Campaign

Faces of Rural Video

Hospitals to Receive $9B in Proposed 340B Remedy

July 13, 2023

Hospitals to Receive $9B in Proposed 340B Remedy

CMS would pay 340B-eligible hospitals $9 billion to offset payment cuts the Supreme Court deemed unlawful, the agency said in a proposed rule. The federal agency estimates that from 2018 through approximately the third quarter of 2022, certain 340B providers received $10.5 billion less in 340B drug payments than they would have without the policy. In June, 2022, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled against the 340B payment rates, considering them unlawful because HHS failed to conduct survey of hospitals’ acquisition costs.

NRHA has curated advocacy campaigns for the latest issues and legislation so you can act today to urge Congress to protect 340B.

Click Here to Read More

Protect 340B

Low-Cost HIPAA Training Options

July 10, 2023

Low-Cost HIPAA Training Options

The American Institute of Healthcare Compliance (AIHC) recommends health care organizations and medical offices, at a minimum, have the following in place:

  • Train all providers and management staff in HIPAA privacy.
    • Annual staff training just isn’t sufficient.
    • You can utilize AIHC training (certifications or short courses) and free training offered by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC).
  • Secure services of certified Managed Service Providers trained in HIPAA security
    • When budget permits, housing an internal IT security team
      • Utilize HIPAA for MSPs – which offers online training and AIHC provides certification (CHMSP).

HIPAA Certification Courses

  • HIPAA Privacy Online Course – AIHC Members pay $375, Non-AIHC Members pay $625
    • Train with the option to Certify Online as a HIPAA Privacy Office
      • This course is recommended for:
        • HIPAA Privacy Officers
        • Practice Administrators
        • Office Managers
        • Compliance Officers Executives
        • Administrators involved in developing and enforcing confidentiality
  • HIPAA Privacy & Security Training – AIHC Members Pay $750, Non-AIHC Members Pay $1250
    • Train with the option to Certify Online as a HIPAA Compliance Officer
    • Earn your Certified HIPAA Compliance Officer (CHSO) credential online
      • This course is recommended for:
        • Most experienced HIPAA Privacy or Security Officers
        • IT Consultants
        • Practice Administrators
        • Office Managers
        • Compliance Officers Executives
        • Administrators involved in developing and enforcing confidentiality, privacy and security
  • HIPAA Compliance Officer – Exam Only – Cost $495
    • Certify as a HIPAA Compliance Officer
      • Eligibility Requirements:
        • Currently an experienced HIPAA Privacy or Security Officer
        • IT Consultant, Practice Administrator
        • Office Manager
        • Compliance Officer
        • Healthcare Executive involved in developing and enforcing confidentiality

HIPAA Short Courses

  • Ethics & HIPAA Basics – Cost $25
    • Online, On-Demand Short Course (earn 2 CEUs)
      • Course designed for:
        • HIPAA Compliance Officers
        • Practice Managers\Medical Billing Companies
        • Consultants and others involved in the management of a HIPAA Privacy & Security Program
  • HIPAA Annual & New Hire Training – Cost $25
    • Online, On-Demand Short Course (earn 1 CEU)
    • Course addresses basic instruction for your workforce required for on-boarding and annual staff training
  • HIPAA Enforcement Basics – Cost $25
    • Online, On-Demand Short Course – Earn 2 CEUs)
      • This course designed for:
        • Business Associate and/or Covered Entity C-Suite Executives
        • Administrators
        • Management team
  • HIPAA – Introduction to Mitigating HIPAA Security Risk – Cost $45
    • Online, On-Demand WEBINAR
      • Designed for:
        • New HIPAA Security Officers
        • Privacy Officers
        • Administrators
        • Medical Billing Companies
        • Insurance Carriers
        • Practice Managers
        • Providers
  • Release of Information (ROI) & Right of Access – Cost $50
    • Online, On-Demand Short Course
      • This course designed for:
        • Business Associate and/or Covered Entity Health Information Management (HIM) Professionals
        • HIPAA Officers
        • C-Suite Executives
        • Practice Administrators

See all AIHC Short Courses