Rural Spotlight

October 17, 2023

Funding Opportunity – Early Hearing Detection and Intervention State/Territory Program – HRSA-24-036

This notice announces the opportunity to apply for funding under the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) State/Territory Program. The purpose of this program is to enhance the state/territory EHDI system infrastructure to improve language acquisition for deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children up to age 3. Funding will support state and territory EHDI systems of services so that DHH newborns, infants, and young children up to age 3 receive appropriate and timely services, including hearing screening, diagnosis, and early intervention (EI).

Who Can Apply?

Any state
District of Columbia
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico
Northern Mariana Islands
Guam
American Samoa
S. Virgin Islands
Micronesia
Republic of the Marshall Islands
Republic of Palau

In addition, you can apply if your organization is in the United States and is:

Public or private, non-profit
Community-based
Tribal (governments, organizations, as those terms are defined at 25 U.S.C. § 450b)
- Native American tribal governments (federally recognized) are eligible
- Native American tribal organizations (other than federally recognized tribal governments) are eligible.

Watch the August 23, 2023 technical assistance webinar for more information

Get answers to Frequently Asked Questions for this funding

Applications are Due November 6, 2023

Apply Here

October 17, 2023

AHRQ Free Health Literacy Toolkits and Guides

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) offers Free information to promote organizational policies and procedures which can foster the inclusion of patients and family while creating collaborative partnerships with other providers.

Free Tools

Guide to Patient and Family Engagement in Hospital Quality and Safety
- This tool focuses on strategies for promoting patient and family engagement in hospital safety and quality of care.
Guide to Improving Patient Safety in Primary Care Settings by Engaging Patients and Families
- The guide focuses on developing approaches to improve patient safety in primary care settings by engaging patients and families.
Improving Your Office Testing Process: Patient Engagement Survey
- The survey can help assess patients’ understanding of their tests and their knowledge about what they should do after receiving test results.
Toolkit for Engaging Patients to Improve Diagnostic Safety
- An important tool designed to promote enhanced communication and information sharing within the patient-provider encounter to help patients, families, and health professionals work together as partners to improve diagnostic safety.
Toolkit to Educate and Engage Residents and Family Members
- This is one of four toolkits in the Nursing Home Antimicrobial Stewardship Guide. It helps a nursing home encourage an open and respectful dialogue between nurses and prescribing clinicians and residents and their family members and helps residents and family members participate in their care.

October 17, 2023

Health Literacy Toolkits, GIFS and Educational Resources

October is Health Literacy Month – Join the American Institute of Healthcare Compliance (AIHC), a non-profit training organization, for this international observance when hospitals, health centers, literacy programs, libraries, social service agencies, businesses, professional associations, government agencies, consumer alliances, and many other groups work together to integrate and expand the mission of health literacy.

Often patients don’t comply because they either don’t understand what is communicated or they are subject to Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) issues.

Check out these AIHC courses to support your organization:

Capturing and Coding Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) for Physicians and Hospitals
- Earn 4.75 CEUs
- Member Price: $45
Quality, RCA & the 8D Approach
- Earn 4 CEUs
- Member Price: $75
Other Short – Low Cost, Online Courses
- CEUs available
- Price varies by course
  - - See course descriptions for additional details
AIHC Free Educational Articles

October 17, 2023

2023 National Telehealth Conference – Recorded Sessions Now Available

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has released the recorded sessions from the September 2023 National Telehealth Conference.

Watch individual sessions from the 2023 National Telehealth Conference:

Opening Remarks – Watch to hear more on the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) telehealth priorities and support for telehealth.
Leading the Way in Telehealth – Leaders from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ HRSA and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reviewed efforts to increase access to telehealth services.
Beyond Telehealth: Improving Access to Underserved Communities – Experts discussed key telehealth priorities to increase access to health care through telehealth for the underserved.
Improving Access to Telehealth and Broadband Services – This session provided an overview of federal efforts and resources to improve access to broadband, mainly for rural communities. Broadband is needed to deliver telehealth services.
Using Telehealth to Strengthen the Health Care Workforce – This session talked about the importance of telehealth in strengthening the health care workforce. Experts share work being done to help providers use telehealth and things to consider for training the future workforce.
Telehealth’s Role in Behavioral Health Access and Outcomes – Providers and experts discussed telehealth’s role in increasing access to behavioral health services. They also review integrating behavioral and physical health services.
Telehealth Trends and Research – This session highlighted recent telehealth research and discussed how it helps incorporate telehealth into the standard of care.

October 17, 2023

HIPAA Privacy Online Training for Managers, Privacy Officers, Executives

The American Institute of Healthcare Compliance (AIHC) has a HIPAA Privacy, Online, On-Demand, No Classes to attend training. The option to certify is included in course tuition to earn your HIPAA Privacy Officer, Certified HPOC credential.

This course is recommended for those who are involved in developing and enforcing confidentiality, privacy and security as a Covered Entity or Business Associate, including but not limited to:

HIPAA Privacy Officers
Practice Administrators
Office Managers
Compliance Officers
C-Suite Executives
Directors and Administrators

Cost:

AIHC Members: $375
Non-AIHC Members pay $625

Tuition is All-Inclusive with online, proctored certification exam.

Tuition includes:

All training materials
On-demand access to qualified, experienced instructors
Online quizzes
Mock exam and certification exam fee
Course completion certificate worth 12 AIHC/AHIMA CEUs

Not a member of AIHC: Join Here

If you need to enroll three or more persons, complete this form to request a group discount.

October 17, 2023

State of the Healthcare Industry: Markey Updates for Rural Strategy

The National Organization for State Offices of Rural Health (NOSORH), in partnership with Stroudwater Associates, invites you to participate in a series of quarterly market updates for rural healthcare stakeholders to stay current on the changes in the healthcare marketplace in order to strategize responses to ensure vital services for rural communities.

By the end of these sessions, participants will be able to:

Understand new regulations and laws that have occurred during the last 90 days
Describe the current market dynamics of the healthcare industry
Evaluate the effects of these trends on rural providers
Apply this understanding to their own organization

Who should attend?

Rural hospitals
Primary care practices
Non-profit organizations
Rural philanthropy organizations
Policymakers, government agencies and other rural health stakeholders

When:

Monday, October 30, 3:00 p.m. ET

October 16, 2023

Rural Health Clinics Still Have the Opportunity to Apply

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. On June 27, the DEA began to require that registration applicants – both new and renewing – affirm they have completed a new, one-time, eight-hour training. Exceptions for the new training requi8rement 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 the funds are exhausted.

How to Apply

RHCs will need a System for Award Management (SAM) account in order to apply
- For information on how to create a SAM account, visit gov
- For help on setting up a SAM account, you can watch this helpful video
RHCs will also need a HRSA Electronic Handbooks (EHBs) account in order to apply
- To create a EHBs account, visit the EHBs Registration page.
- For help on setting up a EHBs account, you can watch this helpful video on the Getting Started in the EHBs help page
Apply through HRSA EHBs
- Visit the EHBs login, and click the Organizations tab from the Menu bar
- For more information on creating and checking the status of your application, visit the DATA 2000 Waiver Training Payment Program Help page

Watch this 11-minute video that explains the changes.

Please send questions to DATA2000WaiverPayments@hrsa.gov.

October 16, 2023

Rural Monitor Article – Recovering from a Cybersecurity Attack and Protecting the Future in Small, Rural Health Organizations

A new feature article in The Rural Monitor examines the increasing incidence of cyber-attacks on healthcare organizations and the particular vulnerability of rural providers. According to the Cybersecurity Program at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 60 percent of ransomware attacks – whereby bad actors gain entry to an organization’s online system and lock critical files until a ransom is paid – were aimed at healthcare systems in 2020. FORHP-supported research out last year found that rural hospitals are less likely to be attacked, but staff are less equipped to handle them when they do happen, and rural residents who need these services have fewer alternatives for care.

Read Full Article

October 10, 2023

CDI Online: For the Clinic or Outpatient Medical Office

Check out this online course offered by the American Institute of Healthcare Compliance (AIHC) for medical office professionals. This course is designed for experienced health information management (HIM) professionals, office nurses (RNs, LPHs), professional coders, chart auditors, and those working in a health plan Special Investigation Units (SIU). Providers and other individuals tasked with the responsibility of improving documentation standards for medical practices are also encouraged to register.

Appropriate documentation is an important part of your practice compliance program.

Learning Objectives

Overview of Clinical Documentation Improvement (CDI)
- Facing challenges of medical office CDI professional
- Managing conflict
- Know the language of medicine
Basics of compliant documentation
- The medical record is a legal document
- Top #1 high risk practice coding issue
- Signature requirements, acceptable and unacceptable practices
- Addendums, corrections and deletions to the medical record
Intro to E/M documentation improvement
- Overview of clinical documentation & progress (clinical) notes
- Achieving compliant E/M documentation to avoid fraud, abuse & waste
- There is a changing health care environment – increased poverty
- Documentation and addressing social determinants of health
- Reimbursement depends on capturing documentation
- Measuring SDOH program performance
Office/Outpatient visit documentation considerations
- New patient E&M visits
- Established patient E&M visits
Other E/M services and documentation considerations
- Emergency department
- Inpatient/Observation as of 2023
- Discharge services
- Consultations
E/M and documentation of time
- Concept of time, documentation, and levels of service for E/M as of 2023
- Know what counts as “time”
- Split/shared visits & time
- Prolonger services and time
- Discharge management
- Time & critical care visits
E/M and documentation of MDM
- Medical decision-making (MDM) for evaluation & management as of 2023
- Using MDM Table to select level of service
- Terms & definitions related to MDM
Operative notes & compliant documentation
- General principles of operative notes documentation
- Documentation to support appropriate reimbursement
- Identifying the surgeon, vs the co-surgeon, assistant surgeon, or surgical team
Documentation of medical necessity
- What is medical necessity?
- General definition of medical necessity for physicians
- Documentation and coding that demonstrates medical necessity
- Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) sets the standard (typically)
- Documentation requirements for DME
Medications, supplies, and diagnostic tests
- Do no harm – documenting drugs and biologicals (medications)
- Supplies
HIPAA, confidentiality and you, the clinical documentation professional
- Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Public Law 104-191
- Special consideration for highly protected psychotherapy notes
- Patient information pertaining to behavioral health or substance abuse
- Your EHR and preventing cyber-attacks

Option to certify is included in course tuition to earn your Certified Medical Documentation Professional CMDP credential.

Cost:

Non-member tuition – $625

AIHC member price – $375

Course tuition is all-inclusive

Access to a qualified online instructor if and when you need help
Training materials and access to the online training page
Quizzes and downloadable information: accessed through the online training page
AIHC membership for one year: available for first-time members only.
Mock exam: this mock exam is one exam total that covers all of the certification exam domains
One certification exam attempt, provided exam is taken within three months of completing the course

Online Registration

Rural Spotlight

Funding Opportunity – Early Hearing Detection and Intervention State/Territory Program – HRSA-24-036

AHRQ Free Health Literacy Toolkits and Guides

Health Literacy Toolkits, GIFS and Educational Resources

2023 National Telehealth Conference – Recorded Sessions Now Available

HIPAA Privacy Online Training for Managers, Privacy Officers, Executives

State of the Healthcare Industry: Market Updates for Rural Strategy

Rural Health Clinics Still Have the Opportunity to Apply

Rural Monitor Article – Recovering from a Cybersecurity Attack and Protecting the Future in Small, Rural Health Organizations

CDI Online: For the Clinic or Outpatient Medical Office

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