Last week was a busy week joining members in Washington DC at the AHCA NCAL Congressional Briefing to discuss the challenges impacting long term care. More than 500 long term and post-acute care professionals gathered on Capitol Hill for this weeklong event.

Along with presenting issues in long term and post-acute care to legislators, we heard from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington. AHCA NCAL President and CEO Mark Parkinson said, "It is crucial that we share our story with members of Congress, so it is amazing to see so many of our members here in D.C. this week to do exactly that." Moreover, AHCA Chair Phil Fogg said, "We must share the meaningful and vital work we do in providing quality care to millions of Americans, the hurdles in place that make caring for our residents more difficult, and the need for policymakers to invest in our seniors and their caregivers."

While on the Hill, the attendees touted a survey from AHCA NCAL of 400 nursing home providers that showed that one third of nursing homes say that their workforce situations have worsened since the beginning of the year and 77% of facilities face moderate to high staffing shortages. In other words, this is no time for staffing ratios.

Thank you to all of those that attended from Arizona! You’ll see from the pics that we were able to meet with Rep. Stanton, Rep. Lesko, Sylvia Lee in Sen. Sinema’s office and Katherine Phillips in Sen. Kelly’s office. It was a great week and major thanks to everyone that took the time to talk.

RIP PRF

The bipartisan debt ceiling deal has officially signaled the death knell for the Provider Relief Fund, with billions in funds that potentially could have assisted senior living and other long-term care providers unspent.

The Health Resources & Services Administration last Monday released a program update indicating that with the passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, no further payments will be made to aging services providers under the PRF or the American Rescue Plan Rural Distribution.

This stoppage includes providers seeking redeterminations of PRF awards. Any funds providers pay back through the PRF also will be kept.

CMS provided guidance to hospitals on the importance of providing SNFs and other post-acute providers with appropriate patient information related to a patient’s treatment and condition in order to decrease the risk of readmission or an adverse event.

CMS has identified areas of concern related to missing or inaccurate patient information when a patient is discharged from a hospital. These areas of concerns include missing or inaccurate information related to:

• Patients with serious mental illness, complex behavioral needs, and/or substance use disorder. Information related to patient’s acute condition may be included, but information related to the patient’s underlying diagnoses of SMI and/or SUD is not included. Specific treatments that were implemented to help manage these conditions while in the hospital are omitted from patient information upon hospital discharge.



• Medications, such as an incomplete comprehensive list of all medications that have been prescribed to a patient during, and prior to, their hospital stay.

• Patient’s skin condition on discharge and orders for treatment if indicated. 

• Durable Medical Equipment, used for respiratory treatments such as Trilogy, CPAP/BiPap or high-flow and skin healing equipment for example mattresses, and wound vacuum machines.

If the above information is not provided, SNF providers may not be equipped or trained to care for certain conditions the patient may have. Not only can this place the patient’s health at risk it can also put the health and safety of other residents in a SNF, as well as provider staff, at risk.

The complete guidance from CMS can be found in QSO-23-16 Hospitals. Please contact AHCA’s Kay Huff with further questions. 

AHCCCS recently filled five leadership positions rounding out the agency’s executive management team and completing the new structure that combines the Division of Fee for Service Management (DFSM), the Division of Community Advocacy and Intergovernmental Relations (DCAIR), Communications, and Legislative Affairs under a new Deputy Director of Community Engagement and Regulatory Affairs. Those changes include the following personnel:

• Marcus Johnson, Deputy Director of Community Engagement and Regulatory Affairs

• Alex Demyan, Assistant Director of the Division of Community Advocacy and Intergovernmental Relations (DCAIR)

• Kyle Sawyer, Assistant Director, Public Policy and Strategic Planning

• Ewaryst Jedrasik, Assistant Director, Division of Fee for Service Management (DFSM)



• Leslie Short, Deputy Assistant Director of Division of Fee for Service Management (DFSM)

Congratulations to everyone in their new roles. We’re looking forward to our continued collaboration with AHCCCS!