Nursing Homes Required to Complete Lab Survey
Nursing homes have been notified that a survey titled "Nursing Home Laboratory Services" has been activated on the Health Commerce System (HCS) that must be completed by the close of business on Mon., Sept. 17th. The survey is in response to concerns regarding the availability of lab services for nursing home providers. LeadingAge NY strongly encourages members to timely complete this survey.
The notice requests that a staff member assigned to the "Nursing Home Data Reporter" role in the HCS Communications Directory log onto the HCS, navigate to the HERDS application, and respond to the survey. After responding to all questions, a user must hit BOTH "save" and then "submit" to complete the process. Questions regarding this survey should be addressed only to the following email: opchsm-cpso@health.ny.gov.
As reported previously in Intelligence, several members in the Hudson Valley region have contacted LeadingAge NY regarding letters they have received from their laboratory provider stating that they will no longer be providing laboratory services or will be providing only limited services. Reductions in the Medicare payments for certain lab services have prompted these changes. LeadingAge NY met with DOH on this issue on Sept. 4th, and the Department indicated that it would be surveying nursing homes statewide to gauge the extent of the issue and facility efforts to ensure availability of lab testing services.
Contacts: Elliott Frost, efrost@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8832 or Mary Wassel, mwassel@leadingageny.org, 518-728-2365