Message from the Board:

Each day seems to bring about another organizational financial cut or complete closure of companies that have survived for decades. Healthcare cuts, including California’s budget reductions to M-cal and other reimbursement organizations are weighing heavy on small rural hospitals and the larger corporate entities at a staggering rate. Now, beginning October 01, 2008 CMS’s Prospective Payment Plan goes into affect hitting hospitals even harder (see Article of the Month).

This is a time when Healthcare Risk Managers need to pull together and support one another the most. A simple smile or invite to lunch (in the cafeteria or hotdog stand will suffice) might be enough to lift a colleague’s spirits. We are all coming up with creative, and effective ways to continue to do business. By sharing these strategies more organizations will gain momentum vs. losing the fight. Another way we can do our part is to support CHA in their efforts to legislate on the healthcare industry’s behalf. Go to www.calhospital.org to learn more.

As we conquer our goals of “safe & effective” healthcare, the CSHRM Board would like to thank each of you for doing your part to support the Healthcare Risk Management domain.

Attending the Annual ASHRM Conference is yet another way to gain momentum. We’ll see many of you in Boston next few days!

Thank you- Board of Directors

2009 Annual Conference Updates:

March 4-6 sets the date for our 2009 Annual Conference. This year’s theme “Why Hospitals Should Fly” focuses on patient safety and how we can reduce patient harm. The pre-conference includes the CPHRM examination preparation course.

To see current CPHRM candidates go to: http://www.aha.org/aha/Certification-Center/CPHRM/certificants.html. Join your peers and become certified in Healthcare Risk Management.

Go to: SAVE THE DATE CARD LINK to see more details on the Annual Conference Theme!

2009 Board members :

Congratulations to our new board members, Daniel Wainwright and our re-nominated board members. Go to www.cshrmca.org/board.html to see the 2008/09 board member contact information.

CSHRM Committee Updates:

Membership Committee Update:

CSHRM has acquired several new members as a result of our mid-year membership drive. Providing on-site regional seminars throughout the Central & Northern California regions in addition to catching up with prior members, our membership holds strong and steady at 210. Send this newsletter on to a colleague and they can easily link to a membership application at: http://www.cshrmca.org/docs/CSHRM2008_Membership_App.pdf.

Our next regional seminar will be held November 06, 2008 at O’Conner Hospital in San Jose. The topic will be “The Joint Commission’s Sentinel Event Reporting Guidelines.” Our own Past-President Pam Brotherton-Sedano will join speaker Susan Shepard, Patient Safety Education Director of Doctor’s Company. Click link for RSVP information.

For those who missed the regional conferences, CSHRM will have an audio/video feed of specific seminars at our annual conference.

A special thanks to Board member, Jimmie Williams and all the volunteers who have made the regional seminars a great success.

To contact the Membership Committee Chairperson directly at: cshrmmemchair@cshrmca.org

Education Committee Update:

The entire board has taken on the task of making this year’s annual conference one to remember. Keynote speaker, John Nance will set the tone for patient safety as he uses the aviation analogy titled “Why Hospitals Should Fly.” See more on the conference in Annual Conference Section. The education committee has utilized member volunteers who have continued to prove their interest in supporting CSHRM.

Audio Conference Update: We’ve had several very well attended audio conferences this year. Thank you again to the host sites for offering your organization as a meeting place! Contact the Audio Conference Chair at cshrmaudio@cshrmca.org if you would like to be a host site for an upcoming conference or just have general questions about future conferences.

Communication Committee Update:

The Communications Committee continues to seek volunteers to assist in article searches and authoring. The committee would also like to express that every effort is made to communicate in e-blasts the best way possible. Sometimes attachments or pictures in the content page itself do not carry over to all corporate email platforms due to firewall institution. This requires us to provide links to the CSHRM website that contain the actual content.

Reminder: Inform The Communications Chair for email address revisions to ensure you receive CSHRM generated communication. cshrmpreselect@cshrmca.org

Article of the month:

COA/POA

This The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has recently updated all sections of the Hospital-Acquired Conditions (HAC) & Present on Admission (POA) Indicator Reporting web site to describe the changes published in CMS' Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) Fiscal Year (FY) 2009 Final Rule.

On February 8, 2006, the President signed the Deficit Reduction Act (DRA) of 2005. Section 5001(c) of DRA requires the Secretary to identify conditions that are: (a) high cost or high volume or both; (b) result in the assignment of a case to a DRG that has a higher payment when present as a secondary diagnosis; and (c) could reasonably have been prevented through the application of evidence-based guidelines. Section 5001(c) provides that CMS can revise the list of conditions from time to time, as long as it contains at least two conditions. The statute is available in the Statute/Regulations/Program Instructions section, accessible through the navigation menu at left.

For discharges occurring on or after October 1, 2008, hospitals will not receive additional payment for cases in which one of the selected conditions was not present on admission. That is, the case would be paid as though the secondary diagnosis were not present. An example of how the HAC provision may effect an MS-DRG payment, beginning October 1, 2008, is presented below.

CMS also required hospitals to report present on admission information for both primary and secondary diagnoses when submitting claims for discharges on or after October 1, 2007.

To learn more go to:

http://www.cms.hhs.gov/HospitalAcqCond

Humor, The Best Medicine

Reprinted by permission of Risk Mitigation Associates