E-News Updates

Mass Senior Care earlier this week testified at the MassHealth hearing on the Ambulance and Wheelchair Van services regulation that was adopted on an emergency basis, effective September 20, 2019. The regulation updated Medicaid transportation rates. MSCA members have noted that access to wheelchair van transportation for nursing facility residents to travel to needed physician, treatment or other medical appointments has become increasingly difficult to secure over the last year as many transportation providers have found it challenging to provide transportation service to nursing facilities residents due to Medicaid underfunding.

Join your colleagues from across the state at our 2019 Annual Meeting & Trade Show on Thursday, November 14th at the DCU Center in Worcester. This year's theme, “The Future of Long Term Care: Strategies to Survive and Succeed”, will feature Clif Porter, Senior Vice President of Government Relations at AHCA/NCAL and Secretary Rosalin Acosta, Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development.

Mass Senior Care’s President Tara Gregorio and Vice President of Clinical Operations for Bane Care Management, Lynne Farrell were featured in the Betsey Lehman Center’s Patient Safety Beat article, "Efforts are on to raise flu vaccination rates for Massachusetts health care staff."

MassHealth’s Technical Refresh, on October 27, 2019, will replace its "end of life" HIPAA compliance and translator tool. Providers and Trading Partners who submit and receive 270/271 batch eligibility transactions are required to evaluate the changes outlined in the MassHealth HIPAA Companion Guides, modify their systems as appropriate, and test the transaction with MassHealth to ensure that files submitted on or after the implementation date will process correctly.

The CDC will host a free webinar on Preventing the Spread of Novel or Targeted Multidrug-resistant Organisms (MDROs) in Nursing Homes through Enhanced Barrier Precautions on Thursday, October 24, 2019 from 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm. The CDC recently introduced a new approach called Enhanced Barrier Precautions to help address the challenges in caring for residents with MDROs in nursing homes.

Oriol Health Care recently donated 35 ventilator units to Dr. Plutarco Castellanos. Dr. Castellanos will be bringing the ventilators to a newly built hospital in Honduras which will help people in need who are waiting for a unit to become available.