The Kentucky Trustee is a quarterly newsletter KHA produces for the benefit of hospital boards. The goal is to provide your trustees with information they need to lead your hospital forward in today’s rapidly changing environment. The Fall 2019 edition of the Kentucky Trustee is available at http://www.kyha.com/assets/docs/Publications/KT/KTSummer2019.pdf.

KHA mails the Kentucky Trustee newsletter to all trustees for which the Association has contact information. This is a good time to ensure KHA has your current board members’ names and addresses.

If you have suggestions for future issues of the Kentucky Trustee, please contact Ginger Dreyer at KHA (gdreyer@kyha.com).

Twenty Kentucky hospitals have already utilized the KHA Board Self-Assessment Survey and found it provides tremendous feedback to the CEO and opportunities to enhance their board. Learn how it can help your hospital or system!

The Board Self-Assessment Survey is an online survey that can be distributed to your board in order to identify where its strengths lie as well as where improvement may be needed.

There are two sections of the Self-Assessment survey – the board assessment and the personal evaluation. The board assessment allows each board member to answer a set of standard questions and up to three customizable questions about the board as a whole. 

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KHA is grateful for the support of its event sponsors! Through their generous donations, KHA is better able to support its members and provide a wide array of events like A Day for Infection Preventionists. Please join KHA in thanking event sponsor Cepheid.

Cepheid is a manufacturer of infectious disease molecular diagnostic tests and the gen-expert system.

For more information, visit the Cepheid website at https://www.cepheid.com.

To become a sponsor, contact Claire Arant at KHA (carant@kyha.com).

KHA is grateful for the support of its event sponsors! Through their generous donations, KHA is better able to support its members and provide a wide array of events like A Day for Infection Preventionists. Please join KHA in thanking event sponsor Becton Dickinson.

Becton Dickinson (BD) manufactures a vast array of infection prevention products ranging from needleless connectors to vascular access care.

For more information, visit the Becton Dickinson website at https://www.bd.com.

To become a sponsor, contact Claire Arant at KHA (carant@kyha.com).

KHA's Pharmacy Consultant Emily Henderson, PharmD was recently elected as a first-time member of the University of Kentucky Alumni Association Board of Directors.

Henderson attended UK from 1994 to 2001, when she received her doctorate of pharmacy degree, summa cum laude, from the UK College of Pharmacy. She was a member of Chi Omega sorority and the Rho Chi pharmacy honor society. From 2001 to 2016, Henderson was employed by Kroger as a staff pharmacist. She now works with the Kentucky Hospital Improvement and Innovation Network (K-HIIN) to promote quality improvement and patient safety in hospitals across the Commonwealth and as the project lead for the Kentucky Statewide Opioid Stewardship (KY SOS). She is a member of the Kentucky Pharmacists Association and the Kentucky Society of Health-System Pharmacists....

KHA is currently recruiting applicants for two positions — Vice President of Health Policy and Vice President of Government Relations.

The Vice President of Health Policy will provide policy analysis and research on a wide variety of issues to support the representation and advocacy functions of the Association. Nature of work will also include data analysis, preparation of reports and position papers on legislative, regulatory or public policy issues, advising on certificate of need matters, and updating and tracking accomplishment of the KHA Strategic Plan. View the LinkedIn posting for more details.

The Vice President of Government Relations...

KHA is grateful for the support of its event sponsors! Through their generous donations, KHA is better able to support its members and provide a wide array of events like A Day for Infection Preventionists. Please join KHA in thanking the event's break sponsor the Kentucky Health Information Exchange (KHIE).

KHIE is a secure, interoperable electronic network that supports the statewide exchange of patient health information among health care providers across the commonwealth.

For more information, visit the KHIE website at https://khie.ky.gov.

To become a sponsor, contact Claire Arant at KHA (carant@kyha.com)....

KHA is grateful for the support of its event sponsors! Through their generous donations, KHA is better able to support its members and provide a wide array of events like A Day for Infection Preventionists. Please join KHA in thanking the event's lunch sponsor Nozin.

Backed years of research and development, supported by NIH grants and successful clinical trials, Nozin products are directed at growing health maintenance and disease prevention markets.

For more information, visit the Nozin website at https://www.nozin.com/.

To become a sponsor, contact Claire Arant at KHA (carant@kyha.com).

KHA is grateful for the support of its Annual Sponsors! Through their generous donations, KHA is better able to support its members and provide a wide array of services. Please join KHA in thanking Bronze Sponsor ProAssurance.

ProAssurance's health care professional liability solutions make insurance simpler. Get coverage that fits and a pledge of fair treatment. ProAssurance Group is A.M. Best A+ (Superior).

For more information, visit the ProAssurance website at https://www.proassurance.com/.

To become a sponsor, contact Claire Arant at KHA (carant@kyha.com).

KHA is grateful for the support of its Annual Sponsors! Through their generous donations, KHA is better able to support its members and provide a wide array of services. Please join KHA in thanking this year's first Diamond Sponsor, Unified Technologies!

Unified Technologies is a technology firm committed to connecting and protecting their clients through various voice and communication platform needs such as carrier services, phone systems, collaboration tools and contact center applications, as well as integrated security solutions.

For more information, visit the Unified Technologies website at https://unified-team.com/....

On October 9, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a proposed rule to modernize and clarify the regulations that interpret the Medicare physician self-referral law (often called the “Stark Law”), which has not been significantly updated since it was enacted in 1989. The proposed rule supports the CMS “Patients over Paperwork” initiative by reducing unnecessary regulatory burden on physicians and other health care providers while reinforcing the Stark Law’s goal of protecting patients from unnecessary services and being steered to less convenient, lower quality or more expensive services because of a physician’s financial self-interest.

Through the Patients over Paperwork initiative, the proposed rule opens additional avenues for physicians and other health care providers to coordinate the care of the patients they serve – allowing providers across different health care settings to work together to ensure patients receive the highest quality of care.

For More information:...

Registration is now open for the 2019 Day for Infection Preventionists, November 12. The event is aimed at supporting Kentucky infection prevention professionals in their daily work to reduce health care associated infection and provide quality patient care. The one-day conference builds on foundational skills provided in previous educational offerings and explores topics with emerging importance. The target audience includes infection preventionists, chief nursing officers, risk managers, quality improvement and patient safety personnel in the hospital.

View the brochure for details. Online registration is available for your convenience.

If you have any questions, please contact Melanie Moch...

KHA is grateful for the support of its Annual Sponsors! Through their generous donations, KHA is better able to support its members and provide a wide array of services. Please join KHA in thanking Bronze Sponsor, TEG!

TEG is a national architecture, planning, interior design and visualization firm specialized in developing comprehensive solutions for complex health care facilities.

For more information, visit the TEG website at http://www.teg123.com.

To become a sponsor, contact Claire Arant at KHA (carant@kyha.com).

A Day for Infection Prevention - 2019 is set to take place on November 12 at Indiana/Kentucky/Ohio Regional Council of Carpenters (IKORCC) headquarters. This event is aimed at supporting Kentucky infection prevention professionals in their daily work to reduce health care associated infections and provide quality patient care. The one-day conference builds on foundational skills provided in previous educational offerings and explores topics of emerging importance. The audience you can expect to network with includes infection preventionists, chief nursing officers, risk managers, quality improvement and patient safety personnel in the hospital.

Please view the Conference Sponsorship Brochure for levels and benefits. The deadline to sponsor this event in October 11.

Please contact Claire Arant at KHA (carant@kyha.com)...

After attending the KHA Health Care Leadership Conference on November 8 in Lexington, stay to earn 1.5 ACHE Face-to-face credits at the ACHE event: Sustaining a Financially Vibrant Health Care Organization.

Today’s health care executives face many challenges such as workforce shortages, updating technology, making facility infrastructure improvements and providing safe high-quality patient care. Each of these initiatives make financial challenges extraordinarily complex. In addition, health care leaders face ever-increasing regulatory demands and diminishing financial rewards. What organizational strategies are available to health care executives to affect their organization‘s bottom line? How can leaders use meaningful metrics to examine such areas as product lines and supply chain costs and revenues? What are the critical links that exist between financial and non-financial managers (or clinical and nonclinical managers) that can impact the financial health of departments and the organization...

Two KHA staff members are retiring after successful careers — Donna Meador and Brad Learn. Join us in celebrating their careers and wishing them well.

Earlier today, KHA submitted comments to the Cabinet for Health and Family Services (CHFS) Department of Medicaid Services (DMS) on the proposed changes to the 340B Policy and Procedures Manual.

KHA's comments outline how the proposed changes would impose additional and substantial burdens upon Kentucky hospitals without any corresponding benefit. Kentucky hospitals are in full support of assuring program integrity and expanded access to lower cost drugs to Covered Entities and their patients; however, the proposed changes, as written, should be delayed until clarified and improved

A full copy of the comment letter is available to members on the Policy page on the Advocacy section of KHA's website, www.kyha.com.

As reported last week in the KHA News blog (article 1, article 2), the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) notified stakeholders that it is postponing the official effective dates of several new and revised standards pertaining to pharmaceutical handling until further notice while it reviews appeals to the standards. KHA urged the USP to delay this implementation and has also urged the Kentucky Board of Pharmacy not to adopt the new USP standards at this time.

The Joint Commission has released an official statement regarding the USP delays:

The Joint Commission is aware of the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) statement released on September 23 regarding the delay of implementation...

Earlier today, KHA submitted comments to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on its hospital outpatient prospective payment system (OPPS) proposed rule for calendar year (CY) 2020.

KHA expressed concerns over the requirement for hospitals to make negotiated charges available, the continuation of the phase-in of payment reductions for clinic services furnished in excepted off-campus provider-based departments, reduced payment for 340B program drugs and the reduction in payment to low wage index hospitals if the finalized IPPS wage index policy is adopted under this OPPS rule.

To read the full description of KHA's concerns and proposals to address them, read the letter in its entirety on the Policy page on the Advocacy section of KHA's website, www.kyha.com.

Registration is now open for the 2019 KHA Health Care Leadership Conference. The annual event brings Kentucky’s political leaders together with hospital executives from throughout the state to learn about the issues that will affect hospitals in the coming year.

State senators and representatives will discuss the challenges facing health care in the 2020 legislative session Legislative leaders will reveal plans for the upcoming session and how health care factors into their parties' agendas Presentation of the 2020 KHA Legislative Platform Special thanks to KHA Diamond Sponsor: Unified Technologies View the brochure for more information. Online registration is available for your convenience.

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As reported yesterday in the KHA News blog, the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) notified stakeholders that it is postponing the official effective dates of several new and revised standards pertaining to pharmaceutical handling until further notice while it reviews appeals to the standards. KHA contacted the Joint Commission this morning to clarify how this would impact their surveys.

Their official statement has not yet been released; however, until the Joint Commission knows more about the delay in implementation of USP 797 and 800 standards, there will be no changes to the way they survey medication compounding.

KHA will distribute any updated information to members as soon as it is available.

KHA is grateful for the support of its Annual Sponsors! Through their generous donations, KHA is better able to support its members and provide a wide array of services. Please join KHA in thanking Bronze Sponsor the University of the Cumberlands!

The University of the Cumberlands is the largest non-profit private university in Kentucky.With more than 40 academic majors, minors and pre-professional programs, students can customize their college experience with their interests and passions.

For more information, visit the University of the Cumberlands website at http://www.ucumberlands.edu/.

To become...

Yesterday, the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) notified stakeholders that it is postponing the official effective dates of several new and revised standards pertaining to pharmaceutical handling until further notice while it reviews appeals to the standards. Those standards include general chapters (Pharmaceutical Compounding – Nonsterile Preparations), (Pharmaceutical Compounding – Sterile Preparations), and (Radiopharmaceuticals – Preparation, Compounding, Dispensing, and Repackaging). In addition, due to the pending appeals, USP new general chapter (Hazardous Drugs Handling in Healthcare Settings) will remain official, but only informational and will not be applicable until the appeals process is complete.

KHA submitted a letter...

KHA was successful in achieving favorable amendments to the Medicaid telehealth regulation. The Department for Medicaid Services (DMS) has issued revisions to its proposed regulation on telehealth service coverage and reimbursement.

KHA is very pleased that the regulation maintains payment parity. DMS will pay for telehealth services at 100% of the amount payable for an in-person service. Medicaid managed care organizations (MCOs) must reimburse the same amount as the department unless the MCO and provider have negotiated a different rate. DMS made several changes to their proposed rule in response to comments from KHA and other organizations.

A copy of the revised rule is available at http://www.new-kyha.com/Portals/5/NewsDocs/907KAR3_170.pdf. The revised rule must be reviewed by two legislative committees before it becomes final and effective which should occur by early November.

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The 2019 Day for Infection Preventionists, November 12, is aimed at supporting Kentucky infection prevention professionals in their daily work to reduce health care associated infection and provide quality patient care. The one-day conference builds on foundational skills provided in previous educational offerings and explores topics with emerging importance. The target audience includes infection preventionists, chief nursing officers, risk managers, quality improvement and patient safety personnel in the hospital.

Mark your calenders now to attend!

If you have any questions, please contact Melanie Moch (mmoch@kyha.com) or Deborah Campbell, RN-BC, MSN, CPHQ at KHA (dcampbell@kyha.com).

Hospital system presidents from across the state met last week to learn details on the issues KHA is addressing on behalf of member hospitals.

Attendees heard a summary of the findings from KHA’s Value of Certificate of Need (CON) report. KHA will provide the results of the CON study to all members at the upcoming District Meetings, so please plan to attend one of those meetings.

The system presidents also received an update on the Medicaid Hospital Rate Improvement Program (HRIP) — formerly known as the upper payment limit (UPL) program. Carl Herde, KHA vice president of financial policy and Wes Butler, KHA’s legal counsel, will be conduct a webinar for all members on Wednesday, September 25 at 10:00 a.m. (ET) to discuss HRIP. Every hospital should attend this webinar to hear an update on the timetable and process for implementation....

The third episode of The Kentucky Hospitals Podcast is now available to download. Members can access the latest episodes at www.kyha.com/podcast. Just log in on any desktop or mobile device for a list of episodes. You can also click the Subscribe button there to receive email notifications when a new episode is produced.

In episode 4, hear a report on the KHA Board of Trustees meeting, the UPL program (now called the Medicaid Hospital Rate Improvement Program or HRIP), certificate of need, price transparency, upcoming meetings and Nancy Galvagni's latest trip to Washington where she...

Last week, KHA President Nancy Galvagni attended a national AHA Regional Policy Board meeting in Washington, DC. While there, she visited Kentucky's senators and several congressmen on September 10. Staying engaged with Kentucky's elected representatives keeps the hospital message on their minds, and she was able to learn more from them about the issues currently facing Congress.

Even though there is a budget deal, Congress has not yet passed appropriations bills required to fund the government. This will not happen before October 1, so it is expected that there will be a continuing resolution passed to fund the government through early December.

It is likely that legislation on Medicaid disproportionate share hospital funding (DSH), drug pricing and surprise biling will all come together at the end of the year.

The good news is that there appears to be agreement on a two-year delay of the Medicaid DSH cuts.

Drug Pricing

The Senate Finance Committee passed a drug pricing...

If a CMS surveyor showed up at your hospital tomorrow would you know what to do? Are you sure you are in compliance with the entire grievance requirements by CMS, OCR and the complaint standards by the Joint Commission or your accreditation organization? Join KHA for a webinar on October 9 to make sure your hospital is ready.

View the brochure for more details. Online registration is available for your convenience.

If you have any questions, please contact Sharon Perkins at KHA (sperkins@kyha.com).

KHA will host member meetings in each of the four districts throughout the state in October. Online registration is now open! This is a great opportunity to get involved with the Association and network with your peers.

KHA has redesigned the District Meetings to promote more discussion and participant engagement. Please review the agenda and materials and come prepared to answer interactive live polling questions.

October 1 Ohio Valley District Registration Materials KHA Headquarters Louisville   October 4 Cumberland District Registration...