Blog

April 21, 2022

By now you have likely heard of CMS’s Accountable Care Organization Realizing Equity, Access, and Community Health (ACO REACH) Model. While priorities of the model include provider leadership, governance, and…

February 18, 2022

Benefits to SNFs, their partners and the healthcare continuum We’ve covered predictive post-acute analytics in practice and tackling the challenges of the Triple-Aim. Now it’s time to bring it home…

February 9, 2022

Advanced post-acute analytics and value-based care Now that we’ve covered predictive post-acute analytics in practice, we move on to the topic of tackling the challenges of the Triple-Aim.  This series…

February 4, 2022

Improving post-acute outcomes and care team experience  I recently participated in a panel discussion that explored the value that predictive analytics bring to skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), their partners, and…

January 14, 2022

Staying competitive and relevant in the world of healthcare is a constant battle as the landscape is always changing. One of the biggest shake-ups in the past few years is…

November 29, 2021

In today’s value-based care environment, long-term post-acute analytics (LTPAC) have become essential for skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) to succeed, stay competitive and achieve the objectives of the Triple Aim for…

September 9, 2021

The transition to the patient driven payment model (PDPM) over the last two years has not been without its challenges. COVID-19 shifted SNFs’ priorities away from the PDPM transition during…

August 31, 2021

We all want better outcomes for our patients accompanied by a lower cost of care. As healthcare becomes ever more complex, it is often difficult to tell where we need…

August 3, 2021

Providing patients or members with the highest-quality care while ensuring you have a handle on your high-cost drivers and liability risks is key to delivering the best in outcomes and…

July 21, 2021

Coming off the rollercoaster that has been the last 17 months, we are breathing a collective sigh of relief with most of our staff and patients vaccinated. And, while the…

July 9, 2021

Back in 2019, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) rolled out the Patient Driven Payment Model (PDPM) with the goal of better aligning payment rates with the costs…

May 3, 2021

No matter what a SNF’s goals are, data has the potential to help them meet and exceed those goals. However, the operative word here is ‘potential.’ Many SNFs are fully…

April 19, 2021

No matter what specific discipline you’re in, being in the medical field teaches you the importance of using data to treat patients better. But what sometimes gets overlooked is that…

April 1, 2021

We’re now well past the one-year mark of the shift from RUGs to the patient driven payment model (PDPM), which means it’s probably time for an annual checkup. And if…

March 17, 2021

Do Intentional and Unintentional Increases in Patient Acuity Present a Problem for SNFs in 2021? One of the best ways to educate ourselves and prepare to plan for success is…

March 10, 2021

Ask any middle school student in a science class how many variables you should change when testing something new and you’ll get a resounding chorus of the right answer—one. In…

March 5, 2021

Though I live in Massachusetts today, my childhood and early college years were spent in Maryland. It has a special place in my heart and many of my family still…

January 25, 2021

A year ago we thought PDPM would be the biggest challenge of 2020. But COVID is not a compliance smokescreen and the devil is in the details and the details…

November 11, 2020

You get what you pay for. For years, CMS paid for volume and that’s exactly what they got- lots of rehab, lots of tests, lots of specialists; lots of volume….

October 26, 2020

This is the final blog in our 3-part series focused on looking back at PDPM data thus far so you can plan. Part 1 focuses on key SNF data; Part…

October 12, 2020

This is the second blog in a series focused on looking back at PDPM data thus far so you can plan. Part 1 focuses on key SNF data; Part 3 focuses…

September 28, 2020

This is the first blog in a series focused on looking back at PDPM data thus far so you can plan. Part 2 focuses on compliance and risk. Part 3…

September 25, 2020

Ah, September…the days are getting shorter, the weather is getting cooler (in the North, at least) and the American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL) has opened their…

September 22, 2020

PointRight began assisting customers in California with QASP in 2017 but the QASP program has been around for over 5 years. The impetus came from our relationship with California Association…

September 17, 2020

For decades, companies behind large, integrated transactional systems such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERPs), Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and Managed Care Applications have disseminated the notion that having all data…

August 17, 2020

UPDATE Summer 2021: Looking for the most recent proposed changes for SNFs? Check out Ten Tips to Get Ready for the October 1 Proposed Rule for SNFs. As with most…

August 3, 2020

By Theresa Edelstein, MPH, LNHA New Jersey Hospital Association By  Pam Kaiser, MSN, RN PointRight As states are moving through the different phases of reopening, hospital groups are looking to…

July 29, 2020

Throughout history, world events have impacted society and significantly altered our daily life. World War II, for example, created an opportunity for women to work in factories and other traditionally…

June 23, 2020

CMS announced plans for expansion of enforcement activities to improve provider accountability and sustained compliance of infection control practices in a June 1 CMS Memo. The memo also reinforced their…

June 11, 2020

Those within the nursing home community “bubble” understand that skilled nursing facilities are delivering the best care under these extreme circumstances just as their acute care partners are doing. So…

June 4, 2020

In May we opened up our Advanced Training session, “COVID-19: MDS Coding and Documentation FAQs,” to the public and we received a volley of great questions that we didn’t have…

June 2, 2020

What’s in a name? Well, sometimes your name can define your calling. For me, it’s no coincidence that my initials are SNF.  I’ve been working within or directly supporting Skilled…

April 22, 2020

With so many waivers and flexibilities being released by CMS in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, keeping current with those that impact your provider setting can be challenging. Sometimes those…

March 30, 2020

CMS’s rapid fire memos on COVID-19 over the last two weeks surely leave many facility staff confused and overwhelmed. Finding time to sit, read and interpret these memos may be…

March 25, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic is hitting skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) hard.  Along with the potential health impact on your residents, staff, and families, there have been several regulatory updates issued by…

March 20, 2020

Thank you for taking care of the most vulnerable among us – our parents, our grandparents and many other loved ones in all our families. We are so incredibly fortunate…

March 12, 2020

Hospitals and REITs must proactively communicate and perform their due diligence to manage risk and support partners and stakeholders. Skilled Nursing facilities (SNFs) find themselves under the magnifying glass as…

March 10, 2020

What do top-level athletes, no matter what sport they play, have in common?  They never stop drilling the fundamentals of the game.  As COVID-19 (a.k.a. coronavirus) continues to spread into…

Like many healthcare professionals, our PointRight team is hard at work educating and preparing to meet the challenge of COVID-19. We are committed to doing everything within our reach to…

March 5, 2020

Asking More Questions, A New Year’s Resolution One of our mantras here at PointRight is “So What?” Whenever a colleague brings up an issue, observation or factoid in a meeting,…

March 3, 2020

The latest news from McKnight’s and Skilled Nursing News covering the Leading Age report Nursing Home Closures and Trends June 2015-June 2019 was disheartening. All the work that goes into…

February 13, 2020

Take a crash course in post-acute data and network management best practices for Hospitals and ACOs. All stakeholders in a collaborative or network need to work as partners and use…

February 3, 2020

UPDATE Summer 2021: A lot has changed since this blog was published in February 2020, including the planned MDS updates for October 1, 2020 (FY2021). Now here we are preparing…

January 16, 2020

By Paola DiNatale, MSN, RN, NHA Why is it important for Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) to understand the connection between clinical documentation and key performance metrics? — ‘If it hasn’t…

November 14, 2019

In the 80s we wanted our MTV; now in 2020, QAPI program managers want their pain quality measures. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced in October that…

November 11, 2019

  This year on Veteran’s Day, on behalf of the PointRight team, I wanted to take a moment to recognize the people who serve veterans every day. We’re a proud…

November 5, 2019

How does the new hospital discharge planning rule impact relationships between hospitals and skilled nursing facilities (SNFs)? Ignoring key regulatory changes in other health care provider settings is a dangerous…

October 31, 2019

If you were unable to attend this year’s AHCA/NCAL Convention & Expo, check out our observations and favorite moments from this year’s event. The show’s theme centered around healthcare ‘superheroes’…

October 23, 2019

PointRight Helps Hospitals Comply September 26, 2019, The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a Final Rule addressing acute care to post-acute care (PAC) discharge planning. There are…

October 14, 2019

Keep What Your Teams Are Working Hard to Achieve In one of my past roles, I was a Corporate Compliance Officer for a long-term and post-acute care provider. I still…

September 30, 2019

Have you cut the cord with your cable provider yet? If you are like most of us, the answer is no. If anything, your cable company is finding more ways…

September 24, 2019

Over the last 12 months, skilled nursing facility (SNF) providers spent considerable time and resources preparing interdisciplinary teams for the anxiously awaited Patient Driven Payment Model (PDPM). PDPM is the…

September 4, 2019

By Paola DiNatale Healthcare providers understand too well that the patient’s clinical record documentation is based on the clinical situation, however too often we get trapped in the mindset of…

July 30, 2019

As Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNFs) prepare for the implementation of the Patient-Driven Payment Model (PDPM) on October 1, 2019, much of the focus of training has been on diagnosis coding. …

July 14, 2019

In the past, changes to the payment system for Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNFs) impacted other health care sectors. When the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (BBA) went into effect, many…

May 21, 2019

Since the CMS Final Rule announcing the Patient-Driven Payment Model (PDPM) was released, there has been much speculation among SNF providers and industry experts about what compliance will look like…

March 14, 2019

CMS is “thawing out” the freeze on Five-Star Ratings effective April 2019. We were all expecting the thaw this spring, and CMS doesn’t disappoint! Remember that spring showers bring May…

January 15, 2019

by Steven Littlehale December 2018 marked Five Star’s ten-year “birthday.” When you read its birth certificate, you’ll see its given name is: “Five-Star Quality Rating System,” though interestingly enough, the…

January 9, 2019

If it seems that hospitals have been focused on readmission rates for years, they have. Starting in fiscal year 2013, hospitals have been penalized for readmission rates for Medicare beneficiaries…

December 18, 2018

Thank you PointRight clients, partners and friends for a great 2018. It’s been quite a year for our industry to say the least. Wild fires in California turned hero care-givers into…

December 12, 2018

We are celebrating Five-Star’s 10th year birthday this December 2018. Over the last ten years, Five-Star has certainly matured considerably, and if you believe it measures quality, then you also must…