The Lead February 16, 2023 - LeadingAge Illinois

From the Desk of Angela Schnepf, President and CEO

Life Plan Communities/CCRCs:
LeadingAge Life Plan Communities February Member Call

Nursing and Rehabilitation:
2022 Long Term Care (LTC) Cost Report Due Date/Cut-Off Date

Housing:
HUD Deadline Approaching to Opt-Out of NSPIRE Demonstration

Home and Community Based Services (HCBS):
Illinois Heightened Scrutiny Updates
CMS Announces Medicare Home Health CY 2023 Payment Development Webinar

Other:
LeadingAge Illinois Advocacy Center

From the Desk of Angela Schnepf, President and CEO

National Caregivers’ Day is tomorrow (February 17). Please take this opportunity to let your representatives on U.S. Capitol Hill know you want them to support expansion of eligibility for home and community based services (HCBS) and better jobs with higher pay for the frontline caregivers who deliver HCBS. Use LeadingAge’s Action Alert template to send messages to your members of Congress to support S. 100/H.R. 547.

Kindest regards,

Angela

Legislators Discuss Healthcare at Roundtable

On Wednesday in Springfield, a group of legislators discussed healthcare and the 2023 Spring Session during a roundtable hosted by Health News Illinois. The legislators were Senators Julie Morrison and Dave Syverson and representatives Norrine Hammond and Camille Lilly; all of which have significant health care legislation experience. Jason Speaks, director of government relations, represented LeadingAge Illinois at the event.

One of the biggest news items to come from the event that, as expected, Senator Ann Gillespie will lead the Medicaid Work Group. She was the sponsor of the Medicaid Rate Reform legislation last year and a solid choice to lead the group focused on Medicaid issues.

Rep. Lilly stated that profitability needs to be taken out of healthcare. She also expressed concern with the amount facilities have had to pay to staffing agencies. Sen. Syverson and Rep. Hammond spoke to their support of the Nurse Licensure Compact, which is also a LeadingAge Illinois legislative priority. Sen. Syverson and Sen. Morrison agreed that the government needs to keep existing programs funded before starting new ones and that providers need certainty of funding. Each legislator agreed that Medicaid redeterminations is a concern.

Governor Proposes FY24 State Budget

On Wednesday at Noon, Governor Pritzker delivered his FY24 Budget Address, which was combined with his State-of-the-State Address. The address was delivered from the House Chamber at the Illinois State Capitol for the first time since before the COVID-era. Keep in mind, this is the Governor’s proposed budget. Legislators still will have a number of hearings, meetings, and debates on the proposals and their own budget requests.

Here are some highlights of interest:

Aging:

FY24 Proposed Budget: $1.592 billion All Funds, $1.399 billion General Funds.
Increases funding for the Community Care Program (CCP) to accommodate caseload growth and utilization and annualize the rate increases scheduled for January 1, 2023, and March 1, 2023- $27.4 million.
Additional funding to support services in rural areas – $1.3 million.

Healthcare and Family Services:

FY24 Proposed Budget: $37.188 billion All Funds, including $9.070 billion General Funds.
$8 million for a Ready to Renew Campaign to help Medicaid customers maintain their coverage or transition to other health insurance.
Includes $100 million for increases in reimbursement rates for providers.
Directs funding over several years to preserve and grow the healthcare workforce, focusing on Medicaid providers and providers in rural areas and other underserved areas of the state – $450 million.

Public Health:

FY24 Proposed Budget: $1.976 billion All Funds, $277.9 million General Funds.
Provides $45 million to support critical IT replacement for Illinois’ National Electronic Disease Surveillance System (INEDSS) and Long-Term Care systems.
$3 million for the Equity and Representation in Health Care Workforce loan repayment and scholarship programs.
$2 million for Alzheimer’s disease outreach, research, care and support.

Rapid Response Team Vaccination/Therapeutics Services Availability for Illinois Long Term Care Facilities

The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) has partnered with Prism Health Labs to provide onsite rapid response services for respiratory illness and COVID vaccination and therapeutics to Long Term Care Facilities (LTCFs) in Illinois. These services are available and provided at no cost to the LTCFs. Residents with healthcare coverage will have their insurance billed. Residents without healthcare coverage will not incur any cost-sharing.

Prism STATeam Onsite Services Provided (outside of the City of Chicago):

Flu/Covid Testing: Nasal and Saliva Multiplex (COVID-19 & Flu) PCR testing for Covid-19 and Influenza with expedited results.
Vaccinations: Administration of COVID-19 and Flu vaccinations
Treatments: Prescription and administration of COVID-19 (Paxlovid, Lagevrio, etc.) and Flu therapeutics.
Outbreak Testing: Serial testing support for LTCFs (COVID-19 & Flu)
- Contact Tracing (test all close contacts or high-risk exposures)
- Broad Based Approach (testing every 3-7 days on unit until no new cases identified for 14 days)
Consultation: Team available to assist LTCFs with meeting HHS and IDPH Long Term Care Guidelines on Infection Prevention and Control.

Requesting Prism STATeam Services:

LTCFs should contact Prism directly to initiate the requests for services.

Hotline/Telephone: (888) 977-4086
Email: LTCSTAT@prism.org
Web Form: Prism.org/LTCSTAT

Impending Deadlines

Each week, we will keep you abreast of important deadlines.

February 21: Final Opportunity for Providers to Request Reconsideration of Phase 4 and ARP Rural Payments: HRSA is working swiftly to wrap up all PRF and ARP Rural payments to providers. Therefore, providers who believe their Phase 4 and/or ARP Rural payment was calculated incorrectly have one last chance to submit a payment reconsideration request by February 21, 2023 at 10:59 p.m. CST. All providers have had at least 45 days from the date of their Phase 4 and/or ARP Rural payment determination notification to submit a reconsideration request. For more information visit thePayment Reconsideration webpage.
May 11: Scheduled end of the state and federal public health emergency.

LeadingAge Life Plan Communities February Member Call

The next meeting of the Life Plan Communities Member Network will be on Thursday, February 23 at 1 p.m. CST. (Waiting Room opens at 12:45 p.m. CST.) The topic of discussion this month will be on the provocative question, “To SNF or Not to SNF?” by a robust panel of experts from Forvis, including Keith Seelof, Juli Pascoe, Andy Page, Meredith Benedict and John Harned. Created by a merger of BKD and DHG, Forvis is a nationwide accounting firm that specializes in healthcare and aging services, and is a LeadingAge Bronze Business Partner. All members are welcome. If you have not already received the invitation, you may contact Dee Pekruhn to join.

2022 Long Term Care (LTC) Cost Report Due Date/Cut-Off Date

The Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services (HFS) is allowing one extra month for the filing of the Illinois Medicaid Long Term Care (LTC) cost report. This is in addition to any other approved extensions that may be granted.

This change in the due date/cut-off date for the 2022 LTC cost reports is a result of potential delays caused by the ongoing public health emergency that is affecting various healthcare organizations throughout the State of Illinois. 2022 LTC cost reports that are filed by May 01, 2023 (instead of March 31, 2023) will still meet the qualifications of 89 Illinois Administrative Code Section 140.560 and be considered filed timely for rate setting purposes if the 2022 cost reports are used to set provider reimbursement rates. This extra month will also allow more time for LTC providers to comply with the new ownership reporting required under Article 5B-5 of the Public Aid Code [305 ILCS 5/5B-5].

Additional extension requests still need to be submitted within the three-month period after the facility’s year end, if providers need another month in addition to the extra month allowed by HFS. For example, the extra month will make the December 31, 2022, cost reports due May 01, 2023. With an approved extension request submitted timely, the due date would be May 31, 2023.

The 2022 LTC cost report files are available to download from the HFS Cost Reports webpage.
Upon completion of the 2022 LTC cost report file, send by email or CD to
HFS.HealthFinance@illinois.gov. A signed paper copy must be sent in also to:

Bureau of Health Finance
Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services
201 South Grand Avenue East
Springfield, Illinois 62763

Questions regarding this notice may be directed to the Bureau of Health Finance at
217.524.4489, or to HFS.HealthFinance@illinois.gov.

HUD Deadline Approaching to Opt-Out of NSPIRE Demonstration

Beginning April 1, HUD-assisted properties enrolled in HUD’s NSPIRE Demonstration program will switch from receiving “advisory” housing safety inspections to receiving “inspections of record.” Properties who want to opt out of the demonstration program because of the change to scored inspections must do so by submitting a request via email to NSPIRE-Demo-Opt-Out@hud.gov by March 1. HUD’s announcement is available here. LeadingAge will host a discussion about HUD’s announcement during our next monthly workgroup meeting on HUD Oversight and Compliance (February 23, 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. CST). Please reach out to Juliana Bilowich at LeadingAge for more info.

Illinois Heightened Scrutiny Updates

Click here for more information on the State Response to Federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS)’ Illinois Heightened Scrutiny Site Visit Report.

CMS Announces Medicare Home Health CY 2023 Payment Development Webinar

CMS announced a webinar on Wednesday March 29, 2023 from 12:30 – 2:00 p.m. CST where experts will provide an overview of several provisions from the CY 2023 HH PPS final rule related to behavior changes, the construction of 60-day episodes, and payment rate development for CY 2023. Further details and materials are forthcoming. LeadingAge encourages all home health members to register for this webinar in order to better understand CMS’ rational for the nearly 8% cut proposed in last year’s rule. As legislatively required, LeadingAge expects CMS to release data for the stakeholder community to utilize in analyzing the payment system no later than February 28, 2023. We are also convening a work group to review the data and its impact on patients served by non-profit, mission driven agencies. Remember to register for the webinar.

LeadingAge Illinois Advocacy Center

The 2023 Illinois General Assembly Spring Session is now in full swing over 5,200 bills introduced by legislators, with more to come. The LeadingAge Illinois public policy team will be pushing for our Board-approved public policy priorities, while also advocating for member interests by supporting legislation that brings about solutions to provider challenges, while opposing and working to stop bills that place undue burden on member settings. We will send out more information on the LeadingAge Illinois legislation as they are officially introduced. You can also view all of the bills we are tracking on the LeadingAge Illinois Legislative Tracker which is live updated on active in the LeadingAge Illinois Advocacy Center. If you have any questions, contact Jason Speaks, director of government relations.