2021 Financial Management Conference
Call for Speakers (Closed: April 2, 2021)

August 1-3, 2021  |  Chicago, IL

The National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC) and the Home Care & Hospice Financial Managers Association (HHFMA) are announcing a call for speakers to the 2021 Financial Management Conference in Chicago, Illinois from August 1-3, 2021. For more information about FMC 2021 read our recent announcement.

The submission should include the following:

  1. Name and contact information of each nominated speaker (you can propose to be a speaker on your own or with a team of people). You may also nominate any other individual that you feel fits the program.
  2. Name of the program(s) you are proposing to present
  3. A brief explanation as to your expertise to present the program

Please understand that this is not a call to propose a program. Instead, we are looking for speakers to present the specific breakout programs that are listed in the line-up. While there is some flexibility in the specific content for the program, the program actually presented must adhere to the essential description and objectives outlined.  This method of conference design has been in place for FMC for over two decades. It has resulted in the finest conference every year, drawing expert faculty and attendees from across the country.

The Call for Speakers closed on April 2, 2021. Within two weeks of the close, we will notify the selected faculty. Faculty will receive a full complimentary registration to the conference. We do not cover travel costs or any speaker fees.

Sessions 1-12
(100 minutes each)

1. PDGM: What Have We Learned After 18 Months? (Part 1)

PDGM was implemented as the new Medicare HH prospective payment system in CY 2020. Assessing the trends and benchmarks of PDGM is an important step to determine how your agency is performing under this new program. COVID-19 definitely complicated the PDGM roll-out and tracking these changes is important. For CY 2021, CMS chose not to make any new payment adjustments due to behavioral changes. What does the data show regarding behavioral changes compared to CMS’s original estimations, and what will we likely see in PDGM changes for CY 2022?

  • Assess PDGM trends in the first 18 months under this new prospective payment system
  • Describe how the pandemic COVID-19 is impacting the roll-out of PDGM
  • Identify how Behavioral changes and the Proposed Rule for CY 2022 may impact your Home Health agencies

2. Home Health Financial Operations Success with Benchmark Comparisons for Expenses and Revenues

Successful home care financial operations are more challenging than ever for agencies of any side and all over the country. Financial, clinical, and managerial leaders will benefit from the tools and comparative data covered in this session, including benchmark metrics, revenue, and expenses.

  • Identify benchmark comparisons of revenue and expense to evaluate your agency
  • Assess areas of agency financial management
  • Outline ideas to implement after returning to your agency

3. Improve Hospice Financial Operations Through Benchmarking

Hospice organizations benefit from a periodic review of financial and revenue cycle operations to identify and address concerns about performance and viability. While employing the right benchmarks to assess revenue, expenses, and the operational statistics that drive them, the keys to being a MAD success are Measurement, Accountability, and Discipline. Given the heightened scrutiny of the hospice benefit and MedPAC’s continuing interest in payment reform, providers need to ensure what is measured is accurate and meaningful, automating the measurement process as much as possible. Every metric should be tied to an accountable leader within the organization and all staff should be accountable to at least one metric. Discipline is the third key to ensure success, creating habits around using data, building a culture of valuing data, and addressing basic processes, roles, and workflows to continuously identify and prioritize opportunities for efficiency and improvement.

  • Explain the latest regulatory changes impacting hospice finance
  • Develop key indicators to assess, prioritize, improve, and monitor revenue cycle performance for optimizing cash flow
  • Identify strategies for minimizing payment risk for hospice operations

 4. PDGM: What Have We Learned After 18 Months? (Part 2)

Building off Part 1, this session will explore PDGM through the lens of operations, sales, and analytics. The speakers will highlight operational challenges and how organizations prevailed to live after PPS, along with how organizations engaged their home health operations to achieve sustainability, while being successful under PDGM. This session will take a deep look into the strategic vision of how organizations capitalized on opportunities to be successful.

  • Describe how to engage your operations team using key performance indicators while benchmarking to industry norms on specific PDGM KPI’s
  • Define how your strategic vision drives operational changes to achieve success through visit utilization concepts, diversifying continuum of care through other delivery models, and continued focus on revenue cycle management
  • Identify areas of focus within PDGM to advance business development strategies while addressing the organizational needs

5. Home Health Revenue Cycle Management and Optimization

The home health revenue cycle continues to be affected by new threats to cash flow and compliance. The transition to “no-pay” Requests for Anticipated Payment (RAPs) for Medicare and Medicare Advantage directly impacts all aspects of revenue cycle operations and presents a new threat for revenue leakage. Compliance initiatives continue to pose threats in the form of the Review Choice Demonstration (RCD), service-specific post-payment medical reviews and the expected resumption of Targeted Probe and Educate (TPE), as well as Unified Program Integrity Contractor (UPIC) and Office of Inspector General (OIG) audits, putting agencies with weak revenue cycle or documentation management practices at significantly increased risk. This session will offer insights, benchmarks, and strategies for optimizing revenue cycle management by enhancing cash flow and mitigating compliance risks.

  • Describe the impact of no-pay RAPs on the revenue cycle process and cash flow management
  • Define best practices for optimizing cash flow and limiting compliance risks through effective documentation and revenue cycle management
  • Apply benchmarks to measure revenue cycle performanc

6. Hospice Revenue Cycle

This session will assist agencies in evaluating the effectiveness of their revenue cycle. Session will review business office structure checks and balances, technology optimization, and tools to ensure maximum hospice revenue.

  • Outline the structure of an effective revenue cycle
  • Explain Notice of Election (NOE) process and best practices
  • Outline documentation best practices

7. Home Based Care Budget Analysis and Proforma

This session will provide the background to properly prepare budgets and forecasts, identify invaluable tools for managing and growing your agency, best practices, and appropriate metrics to review.

  • Identify key components that drive financial performance
  • Outline the management team’s importance in developing budgets and forecasts
  • Explain tips for managing and improving cash flow

8. Use Data Analytics to Drive Operations

Home health and hospice leaders use performance data to track business trends, revealing agency strengths and weaknesses. Leaders need to better understand how to best move the needle on performance metrics. Accelerated performance can be gained through identifying key performance behaviors (KPBs) which, when hard-wired into practice, yield desired impact to key performance indicators (KPIs). Benefits are: use data-driven feedback as a platform for communication to reinforce process adherence, identify areas for process refinement, establish a clear path to accountability, and lead to success.

  • Explain the relationship between KPIs and underlying key performance behaviors
  • Integrate situational leadership approach in guiding teams to adoption of desired performance
  • Identify the financial and clinical benefits of metric-driven leadership

9. Workforce and Capacity Management

Balancing the goals of agency growth and managing capacity is a constant struggle for home health agencies. Successful management of capacity requires close and teamwork between the clinical and financial leaders. The purpose of this session is to explore how the various compensation plans impact capacity. We will also review other key factors to consider to simultaneously achieve agency growth and workforce management.

  • Describe models of compensating field staff that have been implemented for home care personnel
  • Identify compensation methodologies that impact recruitment and retention of staff
  • Outline best practices to determine your current capacity

10. Build Connected Teams During A Crisis: Leading with Excellence

The world has changed and yet stayed the same for groups of individuals who want to produce great results with amazing teams. What creates a culture where people continue to do their job without knowing the future? What culture creates a team that becomes stronger as things get tougher? Times of transition are strenuous, but they are an opportunity to purge, rethink priorities, and be intentional about new habits. How does a public health emergency affect the cohesiveness of a team? How do you keep turnover low and morale high when interactions are electronic instead of in person? This program will offer some of the answers that will help businesses develop those teams.

  • Describe key points in building a performance culture
  • Identify tools needed to manage an offsite team
  • Analyze lessons learned from history/historical leaders during turbulent times

11. Hospice Compliance and Regulatory Update

An overview of the current compliance and regulatory landscape for hospices will be provided along with an eye towards the future.  The COVID-19 pandemic was the cause for modified reviews for hospice claims from Medicare contractors.  The nature and scope of current risks will be shared along with a forecast of how the pandemic is shaping the future of hospice reviews and audits.  An update on the MA-VBID demonstration and possible payment reforms will be discussed.  The next few years will also bring significant reforms for hospice surveys including civil money penalties, other alternative remedies, and a special focus program for more frequent and targeted surveys.  The risks associated with these changes will be highlighted.  Hospice Quality Reporting Program changes including an increased penalty for not participating, development and implementation of the HOPE instrument and subsequent quality measures, as well as the introduction of claims-based measures will be explained.

  • Assess the current and future scope of audits and reviews
  • Identify top claims and compliance risks
  • Assess knowledge of potential payment reforms
  • Explain the latest developments of the MA-VBID demonstration and impact
  • Describe Medicare hospice survey reforms and how to prepare
  • Identify the HQRP non-participation penalty and new measures

12. Review Choice Demonstration (RCD): Lessons for Home Health

The Review Choice Demonstration continues to rollout for home health agencies across the nation. It is crucial to properly prepare for its impact and develop a fully compliant process. Fortunately, many states have gone before us and worked through the chaos this demonstration can bring. These pioneers have given the rest of us an opportunity to learn from their mistakes and capitalize on their lessons learned. Don’t go at RCD alone. This session will equip home health providers with the tools to achieve 90% or greater affirmation rate without reinventing the wheel. RCD will affect internal processes for all departments, particularly for the clinical and billing staff. Learn from top-performing home health agencies on the strategies, processes, staff education, and documentation you need to succeed and thrive when it’s your turn to participate in RCD.

  • Identify required documentation
  • Develop ways to streamline the capture of these documents
  • Eliminate costly and time-consuming bottlenecks
  • List factors to consider when building your RCD Playbook

Sessions 13-28 (50 minutes each)

13. Managing Diagnosis Coding and Impact on Revenue

Diagnosis coding is a top driving factor in the PDGM model. The primary diagnosis establishes the Clinical Grouping and the secondary diagnosis provides added reimbursement through the Co-Morbidity Adjustment. How are agencies adjusting for the operational monitoring of diagnosis coding and the impact on revenue? Agencies need to optimize opportunities to identify changing of the diagnosis coding between the first and second 30-day payment periods.

  • Identify operational processes for managing diagnosis coding
  • Analyze reimbursement trends impacted by diagnosis coding
  • Establish an auditing checklist for diagnosis coding accuracy

14. Performing Financial Analysis and Measuring Performance in Private Duty

Private duty services include many different service types and can involve many different payer sources. Financial analysis and measuring performance can be difficult for such diversity in services and payer mix, and a lack of rich performance benchmarks can pose challenges in interpreting your performance levels. Despite these challenges, private duty service providers need to perform routine analysis on performance to ensure sustainability and guide management in their strategies for performance improvement. This session will present a basic approach to performing financial analysis for private duty programs and introduce key performance indicators that can be used to monitor ongoing performance.

  • Define the types of services and payers for private duty programs
  • Outline a basic approach to performing financial analyses for private duty programs
  • Identify key performance indicators to monitor for private duty programs

15. Develop an Engaged Workforce: Resources for Recruitment, Retention and Leadership

Home health and hospice leaders must be adept at attracting, engaging, and promoting talented employees. COVID-19, changing workforce demographics, and generational differences all present new challenges and opportunities for leaders. What are the best emerging resources and ideas for successful recruitment, effective employee engagement, and functional leadership development? This session will focus on what’s new since a pandemic forced large-scale remote work, what today’s talent seeks in an employer, and how to ensure smooth leadership transitions by planning for promotion from within.

  • Identify reliable benchmarks for home health and hospice employee turnover
  • Outline recruitment/retention strategy updates based on generational differences in today’s workforce
  • Discuss the COVID-19 effect on home health and hospice workplaces, and implications for future work environments and employee expectations
  • Develop an evolving plan to mentor and promote new leaders from within the agency’s existing workforce

16. Financial Land Mines Caused by Clinical Operations

Clinical leaders require financial acumen. Whether the leader’s role is administration or clinical, the need for financial education and understanding has become an inescapable reality. Historically, most decisions within health care organizations have been based on clinical and patient outcomes, but today’s decisions are being scrutinized for their economic impact as we turn the corner on Value-Based Purchasing. Providers are constantly faced with the dilemma of providing more and better care at a cheaper cost. Most Clinical leaders work their way up through the ranks without ever gaining the financial education they need to best serve in their roles. Most health care professionals go into the business to care for patients and then end up working themselves up the leadership pipeline. There is an increasing need for financially informed decision-makers at every level. Clinical leaders are under tremendous pressure to grow net revenues, manage expenses, and re-deploy assets for a strong return, all while ensuring that employee morale stays high and is reflected in a low employee turnover rate. Is this possible? Though most clinical leaders understand the importance of improving financial performance, few understand how they directly impact the financial condition of the agency through their everyday decisions. This session is designed to help clinical leaders learn how their daily decisions, such as staffing needs, productivity, inventory management, etc., are linked to changes in cash flow and the balance sheet, and how they had a direct impact on the income statement.

  • Explain the financial impact of everyday clinical decisions
  • Identify how clinical staffing and productivity affect the bottom line

17. Successfully Navigating Medicare Advantage in Home Health

The number of Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare Advantage (MA) plans growing year over year; over 50% of all Medicare beneficiaries are expected to be enrolled in MA plans by 2026. Home health agencies must develop confidence in relationships with MA plans and understanding how to effectively balance revenue versus cost and effective patient outcomes. This session will discuss how to most effectively partner with MA payers and discuss results of the NAHC MA Survey.

  • Assess MA growth based on current volumes
  • Establish relationships to ensure ongoing/increased volumes of MA referrals
  • Outline elements of MA contracting
  • Interpret results of NAHC MA Survey

 18. Staffing a Private Duty Home Care Agency

Growth of private duty agencies is almost completely dependent on sufficient caregiver staffing. “Home care aide” tops the list of the highest-demand jobs over the next 5 years. What’s the most effective staffing model to meet the often-competing priorities of home care aides and the clients they serve? Learn from private duty home care leaders who have overcome the odds to successfully retain home care aides, year after year.

  • Identify reliable benchmarks for private duty home care employee turnover
  • Outline recruitment/retention strategy changes needed based on characteristics important to this workforce
  • Share a variety of private duty staffing models, with caregiver and care receiver considerations
  • Discuss the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on personal care workers and private duty agencies, and implications for future work environments and employee expectation

19. Private Duty and Medicare Advantage

Hospice has historically been a Medicare benefit only. Participating Medicare Advantage Organizations (MAO) will have Hospice included in their benefit packages throughout the 4-year demonstration. It is expected that additional MAOs will be added to the demonstration as it progresses. Hospices need to understand key elements of working with MAO plans that are a part of the demonstration and this session will greatly assist. This session will take hospices through key elements of the MA Demonstration, including who is participating and how implementation has progressed.

  • Review Key Elements of the Value-Based Insurance Design Model
  • Outline Supplemental Benefits Available to patients in addition to Traditional Medicare Benefits
  • Discuss the Phases of the VBID Model and the impact on out of network providers
  • Detail billing requirements when caring for patients in the VBID model

20. Medicare Advantage VBID: Update on Medicare Advantage (MA) & Hospice Demonstration

Hospice has historically been a traditional Medicare benefit ONLY. Participating Medicare Advantage Organizations (MAO) will have Hospice included in their benefit packages throughout the 4-year demonstration. It is expected that additional MAOs will be added to the demonstration as it progresses. Hospices need to understand key elements of working with MAO plans that are a part of the demonstration and this session will greatly assist. This session will take hospices through key elements of the MA Demonstration, including who is participating and how implementation has progressed.

  • Identify Key Elements of the Value-Based Insurance Design Model
  • Outline Supplemental Benefits Available to patients in addition to Traditional Medicare Benefits
  • Discuss the Phases of the VBID Model and the impact on out of network providers
  • Detail billing requirements when caring for patients in the VBID Model

21. Telehealth, Technology, and ROI

Learn how to use technology, advanced remote monitoring platforms, and focus on changing patient behavior to reduce readmissions and improve clinical outcomes. Discover how telehealth, including disease-specific engagement kits that are customized with educational video, care plans, and medication reminders while integrated with Bluetooth peripherals, improves clinical outcomes and engages patients. Proven results show this technology offers the best solution for the management of high-risk patients and seamless communication through video chat, wound imaging, virtual reality applications, and text messaging. Discover that the ROI for telehealth can be non-financial through improving referral partner satisfaction, increasing the number of referrals, and is instrumental in increasing satisfaction from family members and caregivers.

  • Grow and develop a successful telehealth program
  • Use virtual reality in home care and hospice
  • Apply technology to grow your home care and hospice patient census

22. Home Health and Hospice Mergers and Acquisitions: Buckle Up for Change

Emerging from COVID and round 2 of PDGM, the mergers and acquisitions environment for home health and hospice is particularly dynamic. 2020 saw a record number of hospice transactions — at record valuations. Home health recorded its lowest deal volume since 2005, but this is not unusual as M&A activity in these two sectors tends to move in opposite directions. What does this mean for the future prospects for each? Will home health rebound and push hospice off to the side? Can hospice valuation premiums last? And what impact may a looming increase in capital gains tax play in all this?

  • Evaluate the current state of home health and hospice M&A
  • Gain insights into where the market is headed for the next 12 – 24 months
  • Identify the changes/strategies that can help maximize the value of your agency

23. Managing Hospice Cap Into the Future

An increasing percentage of Hospice providers are exceeding the aggregate Medicare Hospice Cap at the same time that the number of hospice providers is also on the rise. MedPAC has also taken note of the increased spending in Medicare hospice. This session will focus on the factors driving Cap issues, how to manage the Cap on-going and deal with Cap erosion. The session will also discuss the latest recommendations from MedPAC to wage index the Cap and reduce by 20%.

  • Outline factors driving Medicare Hospice Cap issues
  • Explain how to manage Medicare Hospice CAP erosion

24. Top Five Reasons Why Post-Acute Deals Fail and What to Do About Them

Post-acute providers, including home health and hospice providers, are increasingly looking for acquisitions, sales and joint venture arrangements in order to deal with market forces and the effects of the Covid-19 Pandemic. All of these transactions have the potential for success or failure or something in between. This session will focus on various types of post-acute transactions and will provide an in-depth description of the reasons why many post-acute care transactions fail to meet the expectations of the participants and the steps that post-acute care providers can take to avoid these pitfalls.

  • Describe common post-acute transactions including, sales, acquisitions, and joint venture arrangements
  • Explain top five reasons why post-acute care transactions fail to meet the expectations of the participants
  • Identify how can you do better

25. Diversifying Lines of Business Into Private Duty

The term “Private Duty” covers a range of services that includes self-paid professional and paraprofessional care, Medicaid Waiver programs, and other innovative arrangements outside the traditional Medicare benefit. While these “adjacent” services may be attractive to home health and hospice organizations, they are distinctly different service lines that require specific considerations in terms of feasibility and critical success factors. This session will help organizations determine whether and how they might move forward with exploring expansion into a new service line.

  • Identify the range of Private Duty opportunities that might be considered by home health and hospice organizations
  • Outline key elements of a feasibility study to project private duty volumes and financial performance
  • Specify critical success factors that may differ from traditional Medicare service lines

26. Compliance Audits: Help Your Revenue Cycle Recover from COVID-19

The ACA mandates that providers perform six-year lookback audits when notified that an overpayment exists. Now post-payment audits are more common since CMS reinstated audit activity during the pandemic and both contractors and OIG are instructing providers to perform these reviews once an audit is completed and an overpayment has been identified. This could wreak havoc on an agency and if not done properly, could leave the agency susceptible to False Claims Act implications.  This presentation will explain under the six-year lookback provision, agencies’ risks and requirements in the event of an overpayment, and how agencies can limit their exposure to more serious penalties.

  • Identify the circumstances in which the six-year lookback provision may be implicated
  • Outline the steps an agency should take when dealing with an overpayment
  • Identify ways to mitigate risk and exposure to six-year lookback audits.

27. Home Health Value-Based Purchasing (HHVBP) Expansion

CMS announced in January 2021 it intends to expand the Home Health Value-Based Purchasing Model (HHVBP) through rulemaking beginning no sooner than January 2022. The model is currently implemented in nine states and has resulted in an average 4.6 percent improvement in home health agency quality scores and an approximate $141 million in Medicare savings annually. With these results and only nine states participating, CMS is looking to expand this model in the hope of improving patient outcomes across the nation as well as expand potential savings to the Medicare fund. This session will review the evolution of the VBP Model as the five years progressed, significant changes that occurred in the last two years and updated information on the potential of a nationwide rollout.

  • Identify the five-year VBP Model structure and significant changes
  • Assess changes in the final two years and resulting variance in the outcomes (compared to prior three years)
  • Explain statistics surrounding outcomes and reimbursement impact from the model

 28. Innovative Programs Within Home Health

Innovation, leadership, and resilience in a rapidly changing health care world are crucial, and the home care industry has never been as poised to rise to the occasion. The recent Public Health Emergency has placed the home care industry front and center and proven it is resilient, transformative, and ready to meet the needs of patients in the ever-evolving U.S. health care system. By all measures, the home is the future of health care. Home health providers are driving solutions to ensure better care transitions and care coordination across the continuum. One of the greatest health care challenges facing our country is ensuring that older Americans with serious chronic illness and other maladies of aging can remain as independent as possible and age in place, which has proven to be the most cost-effective option. How can we be ready for the next challenge that comes our way? What opportunities are out there for home-based care to step up and show out when the need arises? Meeting this challenge will require envisioning the potential value of home-based health care, creating a pathway for home-based care to maximize its potential, and integrating it fully into the U.S. health care system. This session will discuss opportunities your organization can implement to better serve your communities, while also diversifying revenue streams in your organization. This session will touch on the expansion and addition of Hospital at Home programs, the new generation ACO’s, Palliative Care programs, Primary Home Care, and more.

  • Identify what a global pandemic has taught us about the healthcare needs of our nation
  • Explain current trends and opportunities shaping the environment for home-based care
  • Outline the pros and cons of innovative payment models and if they are a risk worth taking