LeadingAge

As of this writing (November 12), the Committee has not announced the names of the invited witnesses. Names have been mentioned by inside observers, including someone from the Elder Justice Coalition, to which LeadingAge belongs, and a lead witness from the Altarum Institute. Another unconfirmed witness may be from the Long-Term Care Community Coalition.

LeadingAge welcomes this focus on a topic that will only become increasingly important as the population of the nation continues to age. We are glad to see federal policy makers seeking more information on the challenges providers and consumers/family members face and even more important, solutions to these challenges.

LeadingAge will submit written testimony to the Committee on behalf of members. We will address the continuum of services provided by our members and the challenges providers face in carrying out their mission. Information provided by thousands of members in Town Halls across the nation will be included and our policy priorities will be summarized.

We also plan to spell out some solutions to the complex problems faced by our members and by individuals and their family members who are seeking care. LeadingAge believes solutions are possible and welcomes this opportunity to spell out the big challenges we face as a field and the bold solutions that Congress can consider.

Members who want to submit their own testimony are encouraged to do so. Details about how to submit testimony are here . Testimony must be submitted by the close of business on Friday, November 29.

LeadingAge joins with more than 100 organizations who are in support of the Creating Opportunities Now for Necessary and Effective Care Technologies (CONNECT) for Health Act of 2019 (S. 2741) introduced by members of the Congressional Telehealth Caucus. The bipartisan legislation would promote the availability of telehealth, the use of technology services through the Medicare program, and improve care.

On April 1, 2019, LeadingAge, submitted recommendations to the Congressional Telehealth Caucus, as they began to craft comprehensive telehealth legislation for the 116th Congress.  Specifically, we advocated for two LeadingAge Center for Aging Services Technology (CAST) demonstrations that focused on testing new delivery models that address older adults in SNFs and improved health outcomes among Medicare beneficiaries living in the community in home-based settings. The Congressional Telehealth Caucus “appreciated our insightful comments and took them into consideration as they developed a revised CONNECT for Health Act.” The CONNECT for Health Act of 2019 builds on the progress made in recent years to increase the use of telehealth through Medicare. Specifically, the legislation would:

• Provide the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) with the authority to waive telehealth restrictions when necessary. Also, remove the geographic restrictions to allow all federally qualified health centers and rural health clinics to be originating sites.
• Expand the use of telehealth for mental health services, to include the home as an originating site to administer the services.
• Require a study on how different payers can allow the home to be an originating site under Medicare for telehealth services, and the types of services and professionals that would be suitable.
• Encourage the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) to test models to examine the use of telehealth under the Medicare program. Also, authorize CMMI to allow additional health professionals to furnish telehealth services.
• Remove the geographic restrictions to allow emergency medical care services that are furnished through telehealth to beneficiaries in a SNF, a hospital or critical access hospital.
• Allow for the use of telehealth in recertification for hospice care, which aligns with the allowable use of telehealth for the face-to-face evaluation for the home health benefit.

LeadingAge will continue to work with the Congressional Telehealth Caucus on federal policies to promote the availability and use of technology and telehealth services in our field.

LeadingAge regularly meets with congressional staff on capitol hill to educate them on issues important to our members. We review legislation when it is introduced and closely monitor bills that are relevant to our members. The Federal Legislation tracker is located under the policy section of the website. The tracker provides the following information on each introduced legislation:

• Date it was introduced
• Bill name and number 
• Link to the direct text
• The sponsor
• Current status and,
• A short summary

The status is updated when there’s an action taken on the bill.

Members will be asked occasionally to reach out to their representatives when there’s a time sensitive legislation, please visit LeadingAge’s Advocacy Action Center to see how you can take action. Please contact us if you have any questions.

Offered Solutions to Strengthen the LTSS Workforce

It’s going to take a full-court press to make sure we have a qualified workforce to provide services and supports to the growing number of older adults. And a full-court press is exactly what LeadingAge brought to the workforce crisis during October.

Educating Young People: In addition to offering 18 workforce-related conference sessions, LeadingAge made it possible for close to 70 college students to attend the 2019 Annual Meeting. We hope the experience helped build awareness of our field among these young people so they will pursue careers with LeadingAge member organizations.

Proposing Bold Policies: Just before leaving for San Diego, we proposed a bold set of policy recommendations aimed at engaging foreign-born workers in our efforts to strengthen the long-term services and supports (LTSS) workforce. LeadingAge staff and members will work hard to disseminate IMAGINE: International Migration of Aging and Geriatric Workers in Response to the Needs of Elders to members of Congress so we can build awareness about our workforce crisis and garner support for this potential—and partial—solution.

Offering Recruitment Resources: Our Center for Workforce Solutions released an extensive set of tools and resources geared to help you recruit workers to your organization. Our special “Recruitment Tools” website includes myriad resources to help you:

• Reach students in K-12.
• Reach nontraditional populations, including displaced workers, immigrants and refugees, men, older adults, and veterans.
• Recruit workers for a diverse set of jobs.
• Prepare for a job fair.

In addition, the Recruitment Tools website includes 33 mini-podcasts featuring a variety of individuals—displaced workers, immigrants and refugees, men, older adults, veterans, and people in second careers—who explain why they chose to work in our field.

Wrote 2 Letters to Seema Verma

Red Hand Icon: On Oct. 8, LeadingAge mounted a campaign to halt the red hand icon that CMS has started attaching to the Nursing Home Compare profiles of nursing homes cited for abuse. The LeadingAge campaign emphasizes that abuse and poor-quality care cannot be tolerated or excused. But it also maintains that the CMS icon will neither increase transparency nor help consumers pick the right nursing home for themselves or a family member.

In an Oct. 14 letter to Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), LeadingAge President and CEO Katie Smith Sloan urged CMS to continue its efforts to make Nursing Home Compare more intuitively useful and less complicated for consumers. But she concluded that “adding this ‘red alert’ warning system is a step in the wrong direction.”

In an Oct. 8 statement and an Oct. 21 blog post in McKnight’s Long-Term Care News, Sloan urged CMS to “fix the survey system before we start adding this warning sign.” LeadingAge also issued an action alert and disseminated talking points explaining the dangers the icon poses for consumers and providers. To date, more than 2,000 people have sent letters to CMS expressing their concern.

Requirements of Participation: In a second letter to Verma on Oct. 18, Sloan expressed concern about the lack of timely guidance from CMS on Phase III of the Requirements of Participation (RoPs), and asked CMS to extend the Nov. 28 RoPs deadline.

“We have made every effort to help our members prepare for Phase III,” she wrote. “Our members have put substantial effort into planning and compliance. But without the specifics of compliance from CMS, both providers and surveyors are working in the dark.”

Advocated With HUD and CMMI

HUD: We submitted comments opposing a move by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to revise the disparate impact standard under the Fair Housing Act. We pointed out that HUD’s proposal would make it hard for residents and applicants to prove discrimination, and for developers to challenge zoning rules when they encounter resistance to local construction efforts.

CMMI: During a meeting with key staff of the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI), LeadingAge and 4 partners—American Medical Rehabilitation Providers Association, American Health Care Association, National Association of Home Care and Hospice, and National Association of Long Term Hospitals—presented our individual and shared perspectives on future alternative payment models.

Created Resources for You

LeadingAge released a variety of helpful materials for you in October:

• A new Medicare Advantage (MA) Supplemental Benefits toolkit from our Center for Managed Care Solutions & Innovations will help you to understand how MA supplemental benefits work, and how to assess the activity in your market, evaluate the opportunity, decide which plans to approach, and outline the benefit of your services in terms the plans understand.
• A new Health Information Exchange (HIE) selection tool from our Center for Aging Services Technologies includes a white paper, an interactive guide, an online selection tool and matrix of existing HIEs, and 3 provider case studies.
• The LeadingAge Quality Professional’s Resource Guide For Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNF) helps quality professionals in SNFs hit the ground running by compiling all the resources they need in one handy guide.
• New learning tools from The LeadingAge Learning Hub included a Virtual Policy Update on the new RAD for PRAC authority from the director of HUD’s Office of Recapitalization; a webinar on Implementing Firearms and Other Weapons Policies; and 2 QuickCasts exploring 10 Things to Know about RAD for PRAC and Rethinking Dementia: A Positive Approach.
• Finally, check out our new podcast episode about Aldersgate in Charlotte, NC, which was recognized as our October 2019 LeadingAge Catalyst. The organization turned a program designed to draw out residents’ reflections on life into a theater production called “Acting Our Age.”