Thursday, October 7th, 2010 11:30 – 12:30 CT

Room 202 DE at the Frontier Airlines Center, Milwaukee, WI

Iowa Chronic Care Consortium (ICCC) at the AACVPR Annual Meeting

Join a gathering of committed thought leaders and innovators in discussing how together we can create a positive future for cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation.

Health care reform has created a fertile field for innovation that targets the optimal management of chronic diseases, the adoption of population health models, and improvement in health outcomes.  This interactive discussion, hosted by the Iowa Chronic Care Consortium, is built from the belief that cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation professionals are perfectly poised to be active players in this changing world of health care delivery.  Join a gathering of your colleagues in discussing how to create an expanding role for cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation.  

Box lunch is provided to the first 100 to register: click here to register.

The discussion will be facilitated by William Appelgate, PhD, Kathy Kunath, RN, Jody Hereford, BSN, MS and Karen Lui, BSN, MS.

The Iowa Chronic Care Consortium has at the heart of its mission a commitment to reduce the burden of chronic disease and build capacity in partner organizations to effectively manage the most prevalent chronic diseases.  For questions, please contact Jody Hereford.

Marolyn Nuzum was nominated for this award by Barbara Burmeister in recognition of the many years of managing the membership responsibilities for IACPR.  Here are some of Marolyn's contributions and accomplishments:

Member of IACPR 

Member of AACVPR

Marolyn has been in charge of IACPR memberships since 2002.  She has been very dedicated to this role and has spent many hours sending and receiving yearly renewals.  She has sat outside many TriNetwork Conferences collecting dues so she can do her job in a timely manner.  She always does so with a smile and a kind word.  She can always be counted on to have accurate records.  Marolyn is a great example of a Distinguished Member for this organization.

Marolyn has worked in the field of Cardiac Rehab since the mid 1980s in a newly developed Phase III program at the local Council Bluffs YMCA which was all volunteer.  She continued to volunteer there for 10 years.  She started working part-time in Phase II Cardiac Rehab at Mercy Hospital in Council Bluffs in the 1990s and is now in a full-time position that includes both Cardiac and Pulmonary Rehab.  

She has been certified as a Cardiac Rehab Nurse through the ANCC since 1999.

She received the Spirit of Mercy Award in 1993 and has been a recipient of the Positive Image of Nursing Award presented through the Nebraska Nurses Association. 

She is a strong patient advocate and is frequently willing to give of her time for hospital and community events.

2010: The Beginning of a New Era

Seventeenth Annual TriNetwork Conference

April 23-24, 2010, Sioux Falls, SD

You can find the change request here. 

The statuatory changes for Cardiac Rehabilitation, Intensive Cardiac Rehabilitation, and Pulmonary Rehabilitation effective 01/01/10 can be found in convenient links on the AACVPR website under the Legislative and Regulatory Resources tab, as well as in the following links to the Federal Register and CMS Manual System.

It is your responsibility to be aware of these legislative changes and apply them to your Cardiac and Pulmonary Rehabilitation programs. There is a FAQ section on the AACVPR website that is also very useful for putting these new laws into practice.

2010 Hospital Outpatient Regulations for Cardiac and Pulmonary Rehab (November 20,2009)

2010 Physician Fee Schedule for Cardiac and Pulmonary Rehab (November 25, 2009)

2010 Physician Fee Schedule: Section 410.49-Cardiac Rehabilitation Program: Conditions for Coverage (November 2009)

2010 Physician Fee Schedule: Section 410.47-Pulmonary Rehabilitation Program: Conditions for Coverage (November 2009)

Medicare Claims Processing Manual, Chapter 32 – Billing Requirements for Special Services (Rev.1871, 12-11-09)

Here is the response we got today on behalf of Dr. Bussan from Carol Purington, RN, Policy Development Coordinator at WPS Medicare:

The new Pulmonary Rehab benefit and the Cardiac Rehab benefit require a physician prescribed exercise plan in addition to the physician supervision. Your question was discussed with the CMDs and they agree that physician does not include NPPs.

The American Lung Association in Iowa is announcing the 2010 training dates and locations for Freedom From Smoking Facilitator Training workshops. Trained facilitators are allowed to teach Freedom From Smoking classes conducted in their workplace or community.

Freedom From Smoking (FFS) is a state-of-the-art cessation program developed to help tobacco users at all stages of the quitting process. We will provide you with the necessary tools to properly facilitate the Freedom From Smoking classes.

Freedom From Smoking with focus on the following key elements:

• Coping skills

• Proper use of smoking cessation medications

• Recovery and grief

• Relapse prevention

• Stress management

• Social support

This year, the American Lung Association wants to bring the training closer to you. The next opportunities to attend a class in 2010 are at the dates and locations below:

April 15, 2010 - Des Moines, IA

September 16, 2010 - Council Bluffs, IA

November 18, 2010 – Davenport, Iowa 

A confirmation letter will be mailed to you upon registration.

Why no ICN?

You might have noticed there has been no notification of an ICN being held in February.  The reason for this is that we need people to volunteer to be in charge of and to help with the ICN offerings.  This is a big job and I posted a request in October for volunteers to serve on this committee.  The board of directors has gotten no response to that request.  

Therefore, unfortunately, there will be no ICN in February.  The board of directors has been discussing partnering with Academy Medical Systems for educational offerings.  Academy Medical Systems is willing to offer IACPR members the group rates for their presentations.  We still have a few details to be worked out before we can proceed with this.   

The down side to this proposal is that there would be no chance to discuss specific issues.  Keep in mind that any new information for members is posted on the Members Only section of the website.  If the information comes from AACVPR, there will be a link to the AACVPR website.  For example, reimbursement issues will be reported to the membership as the news becomes available.  It is important to keep updated on national as well as regional information.  That is why every program should have an IACPR as well as an AACVPR member.            

Please consider getting more involved with IACPR.  Contact me or any board member and let us know of your interest.  

Diane McGrew

IACPR President 

Each year IACPR acknowledges an individual who has made significant contributions to our organization by recognizing them as â€œIACPR Distinguished Member of the Year”. Nominations for the award should be sent to Diane McGrew, IACPR President, and will be accepted until March 1. The recipient will be honored with a plaque at the annual membership meeting.

CMS has posted the January 2010 Update of the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) for Cardiac and Pulmonary Rehab programs. The most obvious changes in this document is that the session time has been reduced to 31 minutes, and to bill for two sessions the duration of treatment is 91 minutes. You can read the entire document here.

There will be an AACVPR Reimbursement Update issued shortly with full interpretation of these changes.

For those of you who are not AACVPR members, you will need to go to the CMS website, scroll to Chapter 32, page 44 of the document. The MLN Matters document is posted here. 

AACVPR is addressing the physician supervision rules in the Critical Access Hospital (CAH) setting. They are asking our help in getting this brief survey to all programs so that AACVPR can better ascertain the magnitude of this issue and strategize a plan to address it. Please have one person in your program fill out this survey here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=VFNjBuVyv8POG6S83RjhXA_3d_3d

Information for 2010 Medicare rules is now posted for AACVPR members along with FAQ documents for both CR and PR, which will be updated as questions are received. The Conditions of Coverage documents (Section 410.49 for CR and Section 410.47 for PR) are also posted on the Legislative and Regulatory Resources web page.

We continue to have problems with email delivery to members. Please update your email in your member profile so that you will receive timely communications.