Letter from our NCCRA President
NCCRA membership,
The NCCRA and AACVPR leadership recognize that our profession is in a constant state of change. With advances in clinical practices, changes in regulatory/administrative policies and patient’s increasing individual needs we are challenged, more than ever, to accept our ever changing responsibilities. The NCCRA leadership took on the strategic plan in 2016 with three goals: to promote increased membership, member engagement and promotion of future leaders in our state. The NCCRA strategic plan can be found on the NEWS link on the NCCRA website (nccraonline.org) – posted 3/24/17. These goals are critical to increase our ability to support each other. We are stronger and more efficient as individuals when we have the knowledge and support of our colleagues in developing new strategies to meet new challenges.
As president of the NCCRA I was honored to represent our state at the recent AACVPR Leadership forum in Chicago, IL June 10-11, 2017. I was one of approximately 30 affiliate leaders from around the United States who attended the forum. Candace Langston, NCCRA Coastal Vice President, helped to facilitate the forum, as she serves on the AACVPR Membership and Affiliate Relations Committee as Vice-Chair.
The theme of the forum was to challenge us all as leaders to review our “way of doing business” both on a clinical and affiliate level. We heard from the AACVPR leadership the need for affiliate leader to engage you, our colleagues, on a local level to review and adapt our practices to meet the challenges of changing payment models (bundle payments/incentive payments, value based care) new diagnosis codes – I73.9 PAD (see NCCRA website NEWS – May 30, 2017 and My NCCRA link for PAD Exercise Training Kit) and the ever increasing need to provide high quality cost effective treatment.
I would refer you to the NCCRA website to learn more about the Road to Reform (R2R). There is a video from AACVPR president, Tom Draper posted on NEWS – May 11th, 2017. If you have not seen it, I highly recommend you take the time (https://nccraonline.org/news/featured-news/aacvpr-r2r-cardiac-rehab-bundles-incentive-payment-video/). Even if you are not involved in the upcoming Cardiac Bundle/Incentive Payment model, this is the wave of the future and now is the future. There is also a listing of the hospitals in North Carolina that are part of the Cardiac Bundle Payment model and/or the Cardiac Rehabilitation Incentive payment model and an article on Value Based Care posted below.
I challenge each of you to take time to sit down with your staff and discuss how you might adapt to better meet your patients, physicians, administrators and your needs. Our program staff recently took three hours away from our program for a mini “retreat”. We had a list of topics to review in advance, so staff had time to formulate ideas. Our program is part of the upcoming Cardiac Bundle/Cardiac Rehab Incentive Payment model. We discussed and agreed on several major changes on how we plan to “stream-line” referrals into our program. This change will involve our referring physicians and hospital staff and we are working with both groups. We also are making several clinical programming changes to provide high value yet efficient care. We are reducing the number of sessions that will be telemetry monitored, blood glucose tests and blood pressure checks performed. We will perform these procedures as individually indicated instead of a “blanket” policy that has us performing low value, time consuming work. We want to have the flexibility to provide high value service to those who require it, in an efficient manner.
I plan to send out a “letter from the president” every few months to keep you informed on the work of the NCCRA and AACVPR. I also recommend you check the NCCRA Website regularly for the latest updates and information. The NCCRA Facebook site typically announces when new information is available, so be sure to “friend” us.
I also want you to review a new award the NCCRA Board of Directors approved beginning in 2018- the Carl King Award. If you are not familiar with who Carl King is and what service he has performed for the profession of cardiovascular and pulmonary rehabilitation, take the time to review his bio. His biography, the award guidelines and nomination form are posted on the NCCRA website.
Finally, please review the 21 Distinguishing Qualities of Great Leader Volunteers. Are you a LEADER or a PLACEHOLDER?
Please feel free to contact me or any member of the board with any questions or concerns that we might be of assistance to you with.
Hope you all have a great summer.
Mike Dunlap MS FAACVPR
President NCCRA
Manager Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation
CarolinaEast Medical Center
New Bern, NC 28560
252-633-8609
Supporting documents:
AMI – CAB Episode Payment Model
EPM & CR algorithm schematic
The Road to Value-Based Care
Qualities of Great Leader Volunteers