The above photographs were taken during my trapse through NM from Albuquerque to Silver City which cut through the south east side of Gila National Forest. I’m currently in Silver City for less than 24 hrs and once I figure out the new flickr account and am able to share the rest of my photographs, you’ll soon be able to appreciate as much as I do this little colorful town which is bursting with an artsy earthy air and simply draws you in to it’s laid back lifestyle…Loving it! Only wish I had more down time as the Catwalk Trail and the Gila Cliff Dwellings within the park are awfully tempting but simply too far out of the way to explore during this trip….next visit hopefully!

~Maureen

My friend Greg Olson in Montana is not only a great fan of Therap but has also agreed to share some of his expertise in auditing ISP Data. We all know well enough how important it is to prove that we are providing the best services we can to the people we support and it’s devastating when we loos a piece of paper that contains all the activities an individual went on for a month. Although we now do not have to worry about that missing piece of paper we can focus more on ensuring staff remember to enter the data. Greg’s formula is a quick and easy audit which will export all the ISP data to excel and locate anything that is missing. Here ya go!

EXCEL FORMULA FOR CONDUCTING THERAP ISP DATA REVIEW

TO FIND MISSING DATA DATES

ONE OF THE THINGS YOU MAY HAVE TO PROVE TO A STATE MEDICAID AUDITOR IS WHETHER OR NOT YOU PROVIDED THE SERVICES IN A PERSON’S  MEDICAID PLAN FOR A SPECIFIC DATE OR SERIES OF DATES.

CONDUCTING TESTS LIKE THIS MANUALLY AND CHECKING DATES AGAINST THE ORIGINAL DOCUMENTATION IS EXTREMELY TIME CONSUMING AND IS PRONE TO ERRORS.

THE FORMULA AND PROCEDURE BELOW WILL FACILITATE THIS PROCESS MAKING IT RELATIVELY QUICK (2 – 3 MINUTES PER PERSON FOR ANY LENGTH DATA  COLLECTION PERIOD) TO DO SO AND PROVIDE THE EVIDENCE NEEDED.

BECAUSE OF THE REDUCTION IN TIME THIS FORMULA PROVIDES, IT IS POSSIBLE TO CONDUCT CHECKS LIKE THIS ON A REGULAR BASIS AND DEFICIENCIES CAN BE QUICKLY DETERMINED AND FIXED.

PROCEDURE

1. CONDUCT AN ISP DATA SEARCH IN THERAP FOR THE PERSON.
2. SORT THE RESULTING DATA SEARCH BY DATE AND/OR ISP NAME (click on top of appropriate column)
3. EXPORT THE DATA SEARCH TO EXCEL (bottom of the Search page)
4. CONVERT THE DATA COLLECTION DATES FROM TEXT TO DATES BY SELECTING THE COLUMN OF DATES. UNDER “DATA” IN THE EXCEL TOOLBAR, SELECT “TEXT TO COLUMNS” AND FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS – SELECT DATES AND MDY WHEN GIVEN THAT CHOICE. THIS WILL CONVERT THE “TEXT DATES” TO FORMATTABLE DATES.
5. CHANGE THE DATES TO THE “DAY OF THE WEEK, MONTH, DATE, YEAR” FORMAT UNDER “FORMAT/CELLS”. (YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO THIS ONE BUT IT MIGHT BE USEFUL AT THE BEGINNING)
6. INSERT 2 NEW COLUMNS RIGHT OF THE DATE COLUMN. (OR USE EXISTING ADJACENT COLUMNS IF YOU HAVE NO OTHER USE FOR THEM)

ADD A RANGE OF DATES IN THE CLOSEST NEWLY CREATED COLUMN THAT COVERS THE SAME RANGE IN THE CONVERTED

1. TYPING OR COPYING THE FIRST DATE, SELECTING EDIT, FILL, SERIES, DATE AND WEEKDAYS (DAY PROGRAM) OR DAY (RESIDENTIAL).
2. IN THE FIRST CELL OF THE SECOND NEW COLUMN, WRITE THE FOLLOWING FORMULA:

THIS IS A DESCRIPTION:

=VLOOKUP(“FIRST CELL OF COMPARISON DATE (new dates) COLUMN”,”LETTER OF CONVERTED DATE COLUMN”  (therap generated dates): “LETTER OF CONVERTED DATE COLUMN” (therap generated dates),1,FALSE)

THIS IS AN EXAMPLE:

=VLOOKUP(C2,A:A,1,FALSE)

THIS FORMULA WILL COMPARE THE DATES THAT DATA WAS COLLECTED FOR THE ISP AGAINST ALL OF THE DATES IN THAT SAME PERIOD, INCLUDING HOLIDAYS AND MISSING DATES AND WILL RETURN EITHER 12:00 IF THE DATE IS FOUND OR “NA” IF THAT DATE IS MISSING.

AT THIS POINT YOU CAN QUICKLY COMPARE ALL OF THE “NA’S” TO THE DATES IN THE ADJACENT COLUMN AND DETERMINE IF THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN DATA COLLECTED FOR THAT DATE OR NOT.

ONCE YOU HAVE BECOME PROFICIENT AT THIS PROCESS IT IS POSSIBLE TO CHECK A YEAR’S WORTH OF DATA FOR ONE PERSON IN APPROXIMATELY 2 – 3 MINUTES OR LESS.

NOTE THAT THIS PROCESS DOES NOT SPEAK TO THE QUALITY OF DATA NOR DOES IT EASILY IDENTIFY DUPLICATE ENTRIES, IT MERELY ALLOWS YOU TO CHECK AN ISP AGAINST THE DATES THAT DATA SHOULD HAVE BEEN COLLECTED.

Thank You Greg!

~Maureen

I hope all of you had an enjoyable and safe 4th of July weekend! Pic’s are of the gardens this year…bursting at the seams a few weeks earlier than normal as the temperatures on the east coast have been above average this spring and hence flowers are blooming 3-4 weeks early.

I’ll be enjoying these beauties over the next two weeks as I’m on vacation and hope to relax and putts around the home front before I begin my big treck out west to get the beautiful state of New Mexico up and running with Therap!

~Maureen

a quick stop to see my old friends in Wyoming last week

and then back to Colorado….Humm…..I’m thinking I should have a second home here

I’m certainly here often enough and LOVE it!!

Today was a very exciting day in the State of New Mexico as well as in Therapville as we all met for our initial implementation planning discussions and I am happy to report these are some Very ecstatic and friendly folks! I’ll be spending a significant amount of time here in the future training the state and local providers  in a very cool and innovative way of doing business and caring for the individuals they support. And I’ll of course also be working diligently on my skill at photography and hopefully will capture some essence of the history, culture, geology, wildlife, and archeology in this very beautiful place.

….and I hear the cuisine isn’t bad either…hello guacamole!!

~Maureen

The early part of the day was spent on travel with Thaseen and Richard, and although I spend many hours in route to some destination or other, I rarely actually travel with my cohorts. So in essence the travel time can essentially become “downtime” and a great opportunity to get to know just a wee bit more about my very eclectic and engaging colleagues. For example, while Richard was off for the few moments it takes him to absorb the days events,

Thaseen and I had the opportunity to engage in a very intriguing discussion about coconut juice, which to my utter disbelief lasted over a half hour

And I was thinking after our discussion (which did eventually peter out and then naturally delved into a lengthy  analysis of why the Timbuk2 bags are sooo Awesome) of how much I appreciate these very intense and engaging interchanges of  thoughts and ideas on subjects which to some folks may think of  as mundane as a coconut. But that’s a Therapite in a nut shell… smack full of smarty pants whose interests range from not only the teky geeky stuff but down to the itty bitty coconut.

~Maureen

We had a fantastic kickoff introduction with Richard taking the reigns and welcomed all of our Montana Therapites to the start of our two day conference.

and as usual Allison gave a fantastic overview of all the cool modules that providers in the state have access to and of course kept everyone in rapt attention with her witty smarty pants way of doing presentations.

Today is the last day of the conference and it will be sad to leave my second home but I’m off to get the Therap wheels of New Mexico started ..exciting times are down the pike folks!

~Maureen

And then there was Daisy….

~Maureen

Policy Acknowledgement Feature for Electronic Signatures

• Last edited on: Mar 10, 2010

With the release of Therap 8.9.3 we have added more functionality to help agencies work with their regulators and achieve compliance with electronic signature rules around the county. This is another example of functionality developed in conjunction with our users at the Therap National Provider Administrator Conference in New York. As many of you know, this is a slightly moving target and one we continue to monitor and work with. Therap’s latest feature allows you to mandate that staff acknowledge a policy or statement before logging into the system (see below for instructions). One suggestion is that you have your staff acknowledge that by entering data in Therap they understand that they are electronically signing those documents. You can choose if they acknowledge once or every time they log into the system. We based this on a number of documents, including New York State’s Electronic Signatures and Records Act (ESRA) Guidelines quoted below. 3.2.3 Overview of the Business and Legal Function of a Signature A signature can serve the following business and legal purposes: Demonstrate intent: A signature identifies the signer and signifies that s/he understood and intended to carry out whatever was stipulated in the document. Authentication and approval: A signature authenticates a document by linking the signer with the signed document. A signature may also express the signer’s approval or authorization of the document and what it contains, and his or her intent that it has legal effect. The signature provides evidence that the signer really did something and actually saw and approved a particular document at the time of signing. Security: A signature is often used to protect against fraud, impersonation, or intrusion. For instance, to a limited degree the signature on a check is a form of security because drafting an unauthorized check often requires forging a signature. A signature on a document often imparts a sense of clarity and finality to the transaction and may lessen the subsequent need to inquire beyond the face of a document. Ceremony: The act of signing warns or puts the signer on notice that he or she may be making a legally binding commitment. The signature will show that a meaningful act occurred when the person approved the document. A signature should force the person to deliberate over the document and become aware of its significance before making it final. Therap achieves these by: By having staff sign off on your statement of intent and/or electronic use/signature policy. Therap’s electronic signature on each page is tied to the user through our three-part log in Therap’s extensive physical, software, hardware, and network security along with the prevention of direct user access to the data protect your signature. This combined with update and activity tracking ensure that you know exactly who does what in your system. Therap has affirmative save, submit, approve and other buttons on pages. Documentation Setting up the ‘Policy Acknowledgement Feature for Electronic Signatures’ Viewing User Agreements Screenshots

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This week began my dual life as both a Therapite and an Enumerator for the US government. Americans in my local region who, for whatever reason, did not complete and return the questionnaire can expect a personal visit from me and my fellow cohorts. Please don’t verbally abuse me or hate me… this is a federally mandated process, as stated in the United States Constitution and which was begun back in 1790. If you did not fill out your form because you believe that the Census is a big waist of money… believe me, it would be Much Cheaper for our government if you had simply filled out the form to begin with,  than require the government to send someone out to conduct a personal interview and collect the data that could have originally simply been mailed in, but was not for whatever reason. Probably the most surprising bit of information is that Simsbury, which is a very affluent town in my local region, has a … actually, I’m not sure if I can tell you… like all other employees of the Census Bureau, Enumerators are subject by law to sever penalties including imprisonment for divulging information outside of the required scope of our jobs. If you have fears of your information being shared to some unnamed party, be assured that your information is never divulged.. if you think that’s a crock, just give us the number of individuals within your household… the meat of the reason we are out there tromping through neighborhoods harassing folks is that we want an accurate count of folks who reside in our state… this is, after all, about representation and funding!

~Maureen