Long-Term Care Survey Alert

Define and enforce expectations and make participation easy.

This three-prong approach can go a long way toward heading off F501 tags under the revised survey guidance.

• Review the medical director's job description and contract. Base the expectations on your facility's case-mix and particular needs. " If you have a really smooth-running building, the medical director doesn't need to be on the premises as much as if you have one with high acuity and frequent nurse turnover and transfer issues," says Kathy Hurst, RN, JD.

Resource: See "Model Agreement for Professional Services; Medical Director of a Nursing Facility," published by the American Medical Directors Association, available at www.amda.com.

• Make it easy for the medical director to participate. For example, facilities can allow medical directors to attend mandatory monthly QA meetings via teleconferencing, says Hurst. And more medical directors are using e-mail to communicate with facilities, which can be positive as long as the facility has its HIPAA security provisions in place, says Annaliese Impink, vice president and associate general counsel for Atlanta-based SavaSenior Care Administrative Services LLC.

• Develop formats to ensure medical director compliance. To achieve that goal, SavaSenior Care has revised its medical director invoice. "For the medical director to be paid, he or she has to identify the [role-related] activities completed that month," says Impink. "And we have watchdogs in the accounting department who pay attention to whether the medical director completed the form, etc.," she adds.