STATE NEWS

SPARK Funds Survey Coming Soon
KDADS reported yesterday that the State Office of Recovery will require that all Adult Care Homes, HCBS Providers and PACE programs will be surveyed on how they spent their SPARK Funding. Details on what will need to be reported and how is still “evolving” according to KDADS officials, but the survey is likely to be deployed very soon (maybe in the next week or two.) Random detailed audits will be conducted on 5-10% of providers. We will share more details as they become available.

Deadline for ordering PPE is December 30^th – Get started today. First come, first served.
Nursing Homes, Assisted Living, Residential Health Care, Homes Plus, ICF/DDs and other licensed adult care homes are eligible to order PPE and have it paid for (up to a certain limit) on the state PPE portal. Here’s more information and how to access the portal. Please let us know about the quality of PPE you are getting from the State Adult care home portal and the more generic state master contract portal.

FEDERAL NEWS

ACIP Recommends Making LTC Residents and Staff First Up for Vaccination – Next Stop: CDC
Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to CDC voted today to recommend that residents of long-term care facilities and workers in health care facilities receive top priority for COVID-19 vaccination. This includes nursing home and assisted living residents and workers in nursing homes, assisted living and home health. The ACIP recommendation will next go to the CDC director for final sign off. At that point, it will be an official recommendation to the states on how COVID-19 vaccines should be allocated. Read more.

Vaccine FAQs  
LeadingAge is hearing a lot of questions related to vaccines, given all that’s going on at FDA and CDC.  Watch soon for an FAQ document that will continue to evolve as new topics, questions and answers emerge.  One question members keep asking is whether they can require staff to be vaccinated.  Here’s what we know on this topic:

• Employers generally can mandate that employees get vaccinations as a condition of employment, but those mandates are subject to exceptions based on accommodations for disability or religious objections that might be available under state or federal law.  
• Employers may choose not to make vaccinations mandatory or use alternative methods for ensuring their employees get a vaccine once it becomes available. As this is a new virus and there may be multiple vaccines available, education will be critical for employers to assure their workforce is aware of the benefits of a vaccination. 
• If employers do mandate a vaccination for employees, they need to consider whether that impacts any potential worker’s compensation or personal injury claim by an employee for claims resulting in adverse reactions to the vaccine.  

More details as they are available.

Provider Relief Updates

• List of nursing homes receiving September payments and their amounts: Late yesterday, HHS published the list of nursing homes receiving the September Nursing Home Infection Control Incentive Payments, the performance scores, and infection data used. Read more here. This can help those providers/members who operate multiple nursing homes under a single TIN to determine how to distribute the payments received in aggregate.
• Missing September Nursing Home Infection Control Incentive Payments: LeadingAge National heard back from HHS last week regarding their inquiry on behalf of more than 70 member nursing homes that did not receive a September incentive payment but believed they qualified.  HHS said it will not “recalculate payments for previous months.  However, in order to qualify for future quality incentive payments, providers should ensure they upload their current data accurately to the NHSN system.”  LeadingAge National followed up on this very unsatisfactory response, and HHS said it would ask staff to research what issue caused the disqualification.
• Nursing Home Infection Control Incentive Payments: The second portion of the September incentive payment for those who had a mortality during the performance period began appearing in provider bank accounts on November 30. The October incentive payments should arrive within the next week.
• Phase III Payments:  HHS validated roughly 75,000 providers for this round of payment. About 7000 providers are still uncurated but will be included in the payment calculations. HHS has set up a call center to reach out to these providers and get them validated and issue payments.  We expect to hear more later this week or early next week about how HHS is calculating the add-on payments as part of this phase.

Please email Nicole Fallon with questions/concerns about Provider Relief Funds.

Face Masks, Including Surgical Masks and Respirators
FDA published Face Masks, Including Surgical Masks, and Respirators for COVID-19, a comprehensive new page on FDA.gov with answers to frequently asked questions about face masks, surgical masks, and respirators. The topics covered in this new page include:

• The basics on face masks, surgical masks, and respirators 
• Using face masks, surgical masks, and respirators
• Shortages of face masks, surgical masks, and respirators during COVID-19
• The Emergency Use Authorizations for face masks, surgical masks, and respirators
• Manufacturing and importing face masks, surgical masks, and respirators during COVID-19
• Purchasing or donating face masks, surgical masks, and respirators during COVID-19
• Reporting shortages or problems with face masks, surgical masks, or respirators

COVID in Assisted Living 
CDC issued a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), “Characterization of COVID-19 in Assisted Living – 39 states, October 2020.”   Using data from the 39 states that had any, the researchers found that 22% of assisted living communities reported one or more COVID case by October 15; among those diagnosed in AL, 21% died, compared to 3% in the general population.  The study had a lot of limitations, noted by the researchers.  Most of them were due to differences in definition and regulation of AL and highly inconsistent state approaches to data elements and data collection.

LEADINGAGE KANSAS NEWS

Coping with COVID Group Meeting – Mondays and Wednesdays
Thanks to everyone who joined us for our initial Coping with COVID group meeting last week. If you missed this group call, you can participate each Monday at Noon by registering here or Wednesdays at 7 PM by registering here.

This is a free member benefit to everyone who works in a LeadingAge Kansas member.

The structure of the group meetings includes sharing and education. The groups loosely build upon each other and will be repeated at some point, so you can jump in and out of them as your schedule permits.

Questions can be directed to Dana Weaver.

Weekly Webinar Update This Friday
Here is the link to register. We will provide an update on what is happening at the State and Federal level as it relates to COVID and provide an update on other happenings at the Association.

LEADINGAGE NEWS

• LeadingAge Need to Know for 12/2/2020
• Online Coronavirus Policy Update for 11/30/20
• View the Latest Info, News, and Tools from LeadingAge
• Pandemic Playbook: An Interactive Guide to a Pandemic

RESOURCES

Great Tool for Streamlining Tracking Staff Education on CMS Infection Control Training
Several members have asked if there is an easy way to track when their staff take the CMS Infection Control Training instead of having them print out their certificate. For larger members, this becomes a logistical nightmare. Relias has loaded the training onto their system so providers can streamline tracking for this.  Here is the announcement from Relias:

As you may already be aware, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced the launch of a national COVID-19 training program for frontline nursing home staff and nursing home management. This training is exclusively available on the CMS Quality, Safety, and Education Portal (QSEP). As your educational partner, Relias has released a brand-new module designed to make access to this training as seamless as possible for you and your staff via the Relias Platform. This course, CMS Targeted COVID-19 Training (REL-PAC-CMS-CMSCOVID), is available now on your Relias site as a free, permanent library enhancement to the Skilled Nursing Regulatory and Skilled Nursing Compliance categories.

For more information and best practices for assigning this module to staff who still need to complete the CMS COVID-19 training, please download this document.

Share this Tool Widely to Help Staff, Friends and Family Understand the Risk of Travel to Specific Locations
Should you or your staff member attend that birthday party with friends?  Travel for the holidays?  Is it safe to visit your sister a few states away? The COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool was developed at Georgia Tech and can be used to determine the risk of getting COVID-19 based event size and key public health data points in any county in the country. It is easy to use.

PEAK 2.0 Resource for Holidays
We know you are all working hard to protect and care for the elders in your homes as COVID spreads rapidly in our communities. This leaves little time and energy for getting creative this holiday season. We have put together a few ideas for your teams that are now available on our webpage. If your teams have come up with other great ideas, please share them and we will add them to the site for others to benefit.  Holiday Ideas during COVID Site.