Anna's Blog

 Posts Tagged ‘Kansas’

Hey there all my Kansas folks! The quarterly Kansas User Group meeting is a few weeks away and I wanted to make sure that you had it on your calendar. The details are below. You can RSVP to either Becky Sherwood or myself. Hope to see you there!

Agenda:  July System Upgrade, ISP Mobile Data, and Billing enhancements in Kansas.

When: June 27 – 10am-12pm

Where: Starkey, 4500 West Maple Street, Wichita, KS.

RSVP: Becky Sherwood – 316-512-4100 or Anna – 203-910-7780.

Jeff briefs our customers on the daily events

You heard it right folks, Therap is taking the National Conference out of NYC and sending it around the country in an effort to provide an opportunity for agencies across all parts of the US to attend the three-day Mega Event.

If you are wanting to add the date to your calendar, it has been scheduled for January 28-30, 2014.

Our national conference will be run similarly to previous national conferences. We expect to have 12 simultaneous sessions or more for a total of 250+ sessions to choose from.

We are working on a bus for pickup and dropoff from MCI Airport in Kansas City.

We will have a welcome reception on Monday January 27.  More information on events and timing will be posted over the coming months.

We look forward to a great conference and hope that this new location will be of interest to return attendees and will also make it easier for some people who might not have attended in the past to be able to drive to the conference location.

Keep checking in with us on our home page as we post additional information and events!

Therapite travels this week…well, I am in Washington, Texas, New Mexico, Oregon, and Kansas this week…not the REAL me, only the virtual me in webinar-land. Did you really think I could be in all those places in one week??? Okay, its possible, but not happening.

This week I am at home in my Austin office as most of the Midwest gets hammered again with snow (sorry Case). Connor sent me a picture this morning of a very dreary looking Neodesha with ice coated streets. He’ll definitely be enjoying the 3rd snow day in a week. Not quite the same picture here in Southern Texas where we are experiencing mild weather in the low 70′s with blue sky and sunshine (don’t hate).

Well, time to go make Therap-magic …Washington bound in 15 minutes (virtually that is)!

Keep warm and dry my friends!

As I sit here in one of the Southwest Airlines’ newest planes (admiring all of the updated buttons and fixtures…yes, its those sorts of things that interest me) it dawned on me that you may want to know what I’ve been up to this week.

I spent Sunday-Tuesday at the APDDA Conference in San Antonio, TX. It is one of those national conferences where about 150 Executive Directors from ICFish agencies, both public and private, get together and talk about closures, State trends, and State-of-the-State. It was interesting to hear the presentations and see many faces of folks that I only get to catch up with this one time a year. Judi Myers (Gatesway Foundation – OK) as well as Laura and Jo (Community Access-TX) were on hand to give me a hug and say kind words about how much they love Therap.

I got home yesterday, kissed the husband…and the dog…maybe not in that order, then changed out the items in my suitcase (San Antonio weather is quite different than Washington temperatures ) and caught the season finale of Downton Abbey (OMG what a twister of an ending) before getting off to bed for 5 hours. At the airport at 5:30am to catch a 7am flight to Seattle, Washington this morning.  Busy day today once I hit the ground. I will be meeting with another county in Oregon about implementation throughout their area. My day ends pleasantly over dinner with one of our newest customers, Cathie Baugh, Executive Director at Tahoma Hills, where she intends to fill me in on all of her implementation activities over the past several months. (Keep up with me here…there’s still more to do.)

Tomorrow I add another Washington agency to our very large list of providers in the NW and then venture over to Tacoma and talk to a provider about how much more amazing they could be if they only embraced the tools that Therap can offer them (Look for our next new Therapite coming soon).

Friday I fly back home where I will spend a week in my office tying up a bunch of loose ends before the month closes. Can you believe that we are a little more than a week from MARCH?! Gee whiz, where does all the time go??? (oh yeah, see above).

Many wishes for a terrific “hump day” to all of you! Thanks for supporting Therap! We sure do appreciate YOU!

Hey there all you folks from my home state! Mark your calendar for March 14th from 2-4pm when Chris Johnson and I will be over at Disability Supports of the Great Plains, 107 N. Main, in McPherson for our quarterly user group meeting.

If you are planning on attending contact Sheila Goscha. Her contact info is: sheila@dsgp.org; Phone: 620-241-8411, ext. 232. See you there!  ;)

Well Therapites, my very first trip of this wonderful new year will be to my home State of KANSAS. Yep, I haven’t gotten Kansas quite wrapped up yet. There is still a little bit to do and I’m soooo excited to see if this is the year that Kansas agencies that have not yet discovered the  benefits of using Therap will FINALLY make the move over to the 21st century.

I have high hopes! Wish me luck brilliant Therapites and HELLO KANSAS!!!

FYI – Just wanted to alert folks regarding a recent KANCARE bulletin. A few agencies have asked about each MCO giving Therap approval for billing. Apparently this will not be necessary as KMAP will continue to process all claims.

Below is the notice from KMAP regarding single portal for submitting claims -

Effective January 1, 2013, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, Division of Health Care Finance (KDHE-DHCF) in cooperation with Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Services (HPES) is pleased to announce the KanCare Front End Billing (FEB) solution. KanCare FEB is a free service to assist providers, billing agents, and clearinghouses participating in KanCare. The KanCare FEB option allows entities to continue submitting UB-04, CMS-1500, and dental KanCare claims directly to HPES just as Kansas Medicaid claims are currently submitted or to submit claims electronically to each managed care organization (MCO). Pharmacy point-of-service claims are excluded from the FEB service. See General Bulletin 12115 for additional information.

It’s Little Rock, Arkansas that this Therapite will be travelling to later in the week. I am spending some time with Patty, Kris, and Misty as they host a Therap Information Session at their office in Hope. If you are in the area and want to drop by, we’d love to have you there!

Can’t make the info session in Arkansas but you are interested in having me present at your agency???  Just shoot me an email and I would love to arrange a visit to meet with prospective new users. Hope to hear from you!   ;)

For those of us that had to maneuver through monorails, trains, and taxis last year to get to the hotel, we have devised a NEW and MORE HELPFUL way of getting our customers to and from the hotel for the 2013 National Conference.

Therap will be chartering a bus to pick people up from the AirTrain Monorail at Newark Airport on Monday January 28, 2013 which is the day before the national conference starts on January 29-31.

We  don’t have the exact monorail stop yet. We will be chartering an approximate 50 person bus. Our plan is to have the bus for airport pickups at 2pm, 4pm, 6pm and 8pm. The times may change due to traffic and other conditions. We will announce specific times and a pickup location closer to the event.

It should be possible for people taking Amtrak to also meet the bus.

There will not be a charge for the bus.

We are not guaranteeing space on the bus, although we think there should be availability for people to get on the bus of their choice.

We will also be running buses back to the airport on the last day of the conference Thursday January 31, 2013. These buses are estimated to leave the hotel at 1:30pm, 3:30pm, 5:30pm and 7:30pm.  If we are allowed we will drop people directly at each terminal. If not, we will drop at a Newark Airport Monorail station.

This is the first year we have done this – so please let us know if this is useful or if there are any questions.

Hope this helps with your planning! Looking forward to seeing you in January!