VRHA News
>>VRHA in the News
>>Members in the News

Virginia Rural Health News
>>Administration Appointments
>>America's Low-Energy Zone
>>Nursing Workforce

National Rural Health News
>>Dental Care in Rural Alaska
>>Rural Health Clinic Oversight
>>Making Small-Town Doctors

Newsletter available

U.S. Senator Pat Roberts, Co-Chairman of the Senate Rural Health Caucus, today met with members of the National Rural Health Association [chaired by VRHA Executive Director Beth O'Connor] to discuss legislation to protect and enhance the rural health delivery system in America.

"As the new health care law takes effect, it is important we ensure patients have access to quality health care in rural areas," Roberts said. "We must also ensure that doing business with the federal government, especially under the new law, doesn't drive rural providers out of business."

Roberts discussed the status of several legislative efforts the Senate Rural Health Caucus is coordinating including: educating senators about the unique challenges facing rural providers especially regarding Medicare/Medicaid payments, attracting physicians to serve rural populations and other issues.

Read the full article.

By Mary Hardbarger - the Roanoke Times

There were no basketball hoops, swimming pools or soccer fields in site. Just a long, sterile laboratory, vacant except for dozens of cadavers zipped closed on metal tables.

That's the scene many area high school students were exposed to throughout the past two weeks at [VRHA member] Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine's Summer Enrichment Experience.

Unlike a typical summer sports or academic camp, the SEE program incorporates cadaver prosections, "Anatomy Olympics," lab activities and interactive lectures with medical students and faculty. The mission of SEE is to expose high school students in medically underserved areas of Appalachia to human anatomy and its relevance to healthy lifestyles and medicine.

Read the full article.

Governor Bob McDonnell announced three appointments to his administration. Cindi Jones has been appointed as Director of the Department of Medical Assistance Services. 

Cindi Jones has more than 31 years of public service experience with the Commonwealth of Virginia in various health care positions.  Cindi currently serves as Director of the Virginia Health Reform Initiative.  Jones will continue to serve as Director of Virginia’s Health Reform Initiative as she assumes her new responsibilities.  More than 20 years of her service has been at the Department of Medical Assistance Services; including service as the Interim Director and served eight years as the Chief Deputy Director.  She formerly was a Chief Legislative Analyst at the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission. 

Jones received both a B.S. and M.S. in family and child services from Virginia Tech.  She is a member of the Virginia Tech Center for Gerontology Futures Board and the National Association of State Medicaid Directors' Chronic Care Technical Assistance Group.  Jones grew up in Fairfax County, Virginia and currently resides in Henrico, Virginia with her husband, T.C.  She has two adult children, Jayme and Danny Bowling.

Read the full press release.

America's Low-Energy Zone

By the Rural Assistance Center

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced $71.3 million in grants to expand nursing education, training and diversity.

Nursing workforce development programs, reauthorized by the Affordable Care Act and administered by HHS’ Health Resources and Services Administration, are the primary source of federal funding for nursing education and workforce development. These programs bolster nursing education at all levels, from entry-level preparation through the development of advanced practice nurses. They also prepare faculty to teach the nation’s future nursing workforce.

Virginia grantees are:

Read the full article.

By Mark Trahant - the Daily Yonder

Conan Murat has a tough schedule. About every other week he packs up a portable dental office, checks his groceries, sleeping bags and other supplies, then flies to one of his 13 assigned remote villages in the Yukon-Kushkokwin Delta.

Remote is a relative word.

Murat’s base is Aniak, some 90 air miles north of Bethel, and a village of just more than 500 people. When he reaches his destination, Murat performs the tasks of basic dentistry: fillings, nerve treatments, x-rays, stainless steel crowns, extraction of teeth and preventative care.

Murat’s visit opens up a new world and the prospect of significantly improved dental health. Dental health therapists now serve some 35,000 Alaska Natives in villages across the state.

Read the full article.

By Sheri Porter - AAFP News Now

It's an "oversight," a "technical glitch," an "unintentional error," or perhaps just a "misunderstanding" about how rural health clinics bill the government for health care services provided to Medicare beneficiaries. That's how some rural family physicians describe the fact that most of America's nearly 3,800 rural health clinics likely will miss out when physicians receive their checks for meeting all of the requirements of Medicare's electronic health record, or EHR, incentive program.

According to AAFP Director Robert Wergin, M.D., of Milford, Neb., his rural family medicine practice possibly will miss out on collecting $440,000 -- the amount available if each of the clinic's 10 physicians earned the maximum Medicare EHR incentive of $44,000.

The problem practices such as Wergin's are encountering is that rural health clinics bill for Medicare services as part of Medicare Part A. Therefore, they use an UB-04 form, not the HCFA 1500 Medicare Part B form. Unfortunately, the Part B form is the form required by the regulations governing Medicare's EHR incentive program.

Read the full article.

By A. G. Sulzberger - the New York Times

Kansas, so sparsely populated in parts that five counties have no doctors at all, has struggled for years to encourage young doctors to relocate to rural communities, where health problems are often exacerbated by a lack of even the most basic care.

On Friday, a new medical school campus opened here to provide a novel solution to the persistent problem: an inaugural class of eight aspiring doctors who will receive all their training in exactly the kind of small community where officials hope they will remain to practice medicine.

The new school, operated by the University of Kansas, is billed as the smallest in the nation to offer a full four-year medical education. More important, supporters say, the students will remain personally and professionally rooted in the agricultural center of the state — a three-hour drive from the university’s state-of-the-art medical and research facilities in Kansas City.

It will be a different experience, one that administrators say will better prepare students for the realities of a rural practice. Lectures on subjects like anatomy will be delivered via streaming video, lab work will be overseen by more practicing generalists and fewer academic specialists, and the problems of patients will tend more to the everyday than to the extraordinary.

Read the full article.

Mark your calendar

For more information about these and other events, visit http://www.vrha.org/events.html

August 16: Beyond Body Image - Roanoke
August 26: Substance Abuse Education and New Trends - Wytheville
September 12-13: 2011 Virginia Rural Summit - Glen Allen
September 17: Educational Forum on Prescription Drug Abuse - Richlands
September 17: Educational Forum on Prescription Drug Abuse - Big Stone Gap
October 4-5: Weight of the State Conference - Richmond
October 5-7: International Rural Nursing & Rural Health Conference - Binghamton, NY
November 13-15: Virginia Association of Free Clinics Annual Conference - Staunton

Resources

From the Medicare Learning Network:

• Medicare Quarterly Provider Compliance Newsletter
  The July 2011 issue of the “Medicare Quarterly Provider Compliance Newsletter” is now available. This educational tool is issued on a quarterly basis and designed to provide education on how to avoid common billing errors and other erroneous activities when dealing with the Medicare Program.  In this issue, several Recovery Audit findings that affect inpatient hospitals and DMEPOS suppliers are presented.  
• Overview of Medicare Policy Regarding Chiropractic Services
  This article supports existing policy and is intended to help affected providers comply with Medicare coverage, coding, and documentation requirements related to chiropractic services.
• New Information To Improve Patient Safety at America’s Hospitals
  This article reminds providers that they may review and share data about Hospital Acquired Conditions (HACs) with their Medicare patients via the Hospital Compare website. Based on information that has previously been released about CMS’s efforts to improve the safety of care in America’s hospitals.
• 2011 Physician Quality Reporting System Maintenance of Certification Program
  This fact sheet provides education on the incentive payment to identified eligible professionals who satisfactorily report data on quality measures for covered Physician Fee Schedule services furnished to Medicare Part B Fee-For-Service beneficiaries, and includes information on the additional 0.5 percent incentive payment when Maintenance of Certification Program Incentive requirements have also been met.
• Medicare Physician Guide
  The guide includes information on an introduction to the Medicare Program, becoming a Medicare provider or supplier, Medicare reimbursement, Medicare services, protecting the Medicare Trust Fund, Medicare overpayments and Fee-For-Service appeals, and provider outreach and education.

Funding Opportunities

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholars
Application Deadline: September 30, 2011 (3:00 PM EDT)
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholars program provides two years of support to postdoctoral scholars at all stages of their careers to build the nation's capacity for research and leadership to address the multiple determinants of population health and contribute to policy change. The program is based on the principle that progress in the field of population health depends upon multidisciplinary collaboration and exchange. Its goal is to improve health by training scholars to:

1. investigate the connections among biological, genetic, behavioral, environmental, economic and social determinants of health; and
2. develop, evaluate and disseminate knowledge, interventions and policies that integrate and act on these determinants to improve health