As a member-driven organization, NASL depends on the involvement of its membership to set the direction of our association and help accomplish our collective goals. Watch your inbox this week for a message from NASL President Garry Pezzano about why "running for the Board is a great opportunity to become more active with the association." Nominations will be accepted through Friday, August 8. Contact NASL at 202.803.2385 or email membership@nasl.org for more information.

Before the dog days of August are here, NASL is hosting two must-attend webinars on Tuesday, July 29 and Wednesday, July 30. First, leading researcher, Dr. Barbara Gage and CMS quality measure experts, Stella Mandl, BSW, BSN, PHN, RN and Tara McMullen, MPH, will share insights about standardized patient assessment data collection and quality measurement. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn how CMS is building a future state where quality measures are harmonized at the data element level, providers and vendors have public access to standards and data elements are easily available with national standards to support post-acute care health information technology and care communication through electronic health records (EHRs). Then, on Wednesday, July 30, NASL Executive Vice President Cynthia Morton, MPA, and NASL Policy Counsel, Alan Parver, Esq. of Arnall Golden Gregory, LLP, will discuss the major provisions of the Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation (IMPACT) Act of 2014 (S. 2553, H.R. 4994), which would require post-acute settings to begin reporting quality measures in 2016 and use of standardized patient assessment data by 2018. Register online at NASL.org.

CMS’ Survey & Certification letter (S&C 14-38-OPT), which is dated July 3, 2014, is effective immediately. The memo highlights clarifications that CMS has made to the fire safety requirements found in its interpretive guidance in the State Operations Manual (SOM) Appendix E. Read more

On July 9, the Senate Special Committee on Aging held a hearing entitled, Improving Audits: How We Can Strengthen the Medicare Program for Future Programs. Both the Committee Chair, Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL), and the Ranking Member, Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), expressed their unhappiness with CMS’ general model of pay and chase with regard to improper payments. The Committee also released a report, Improving Audits: How We Can Strengthen the Medicare Program for Future Generations. The next day, the Chief Administrative Law Judge Nancy Griswold explained to a House Subcommittee about how the Office of Medicare Hearings & Appeals (OMHA) is working to address the backlog of 800,000 appeals that were pending as of July 1, The Chief ALJ reportedly estimated that CMS is now receiving close to a year's worth of appeals in a month or 6 weeks. Read the Senate Committee on Aging report.

Since our last update during the NASL Annual Meeting last fall in Phoenix, NASL-AHCA’s Therapy Outcomes Workgroup has been hard at work. We’ve held two in-person meetings to review the data gathered from our pilot and review the modeling and statistical analysis of that data conducted by The Moran Company. Read more

By law, CMS must recompete contracts under the Medicare Durable Medical Equipment, Prosthetics, Orthotics & Supplies (DMEPOS) DMEPOS Competitive Bidding Program at least once every three years. On July 15, 2014, CMS announced that it would recompete the supplier contracts awarded in Round 2 of the Competitive Bidding Program. Read more