Richard's Blog

 Archive for the ‘User Groups’ Category

Therap will be hosting a Regional Conference/WV user group meeting at the Flatwoods Days Hotel and Conference Center in Sutton, WV.

This was requested by and is primarily designed for providers and agencies in West Virginia.

This will be a 2 room conference.

It is designed to focus on West Virginia issues and concerns.  There will be a track on general Therap applications as well.

Agencies which have questions can contact Ken Slavin who will be coordinating the conference agenda.

We had our first New York City User Group meeting today. Thanks to Services for the Underserved for hosting and refreshments.

Other agencies in attendence included Cardinal McCloskey Services, Cay Community Services Organization, and Center for Family Support.

Jim Kelly, Justin Brockie (via phone) and I presented with discussions on a range of New York topics including billing, reshab plans, medicaid service coordination, ISPs and more.

As it always seems in New York, a good discussion was held on OMRRD and OMIG and policies of electronic signatures.

The group was already discussing future meetings. So look for announcements of date and time.

People often ask which Therap conference makes the most sense to attend. There are really three type of conferences we currently run (I might change that to 4 types if I can call user groups mini-conferences).

1) Therap Regional Conferences like the 2 day conference being held today in Salem, Oregon. These conference are designed for a concentrated local set of Therap users. Most of the sessions are module specific.

For 2010 we are expecting to hold conferences again in Maine and Oregon. Plus new regional conferences in North Dakota, Montana and other states as we have more Therap users.

2) Side by Side Technology Conferences with College of Direct Support. These confernces are held throughout the country and are designed for agencies to get a broad exposure to a number of technology companies working in the developmental disability community. There are sessions on many aspects of use of Therap and College Direct Support, plus general discussions on issues with past participants including Deyta, Rest Assured and Web Footed Friends. The first 2010 conference will be in Kansas City Missouri.

3) Therap National Provider Administrator Conference. Our 2010 conference will be held in Fishkill, NY February 2-4, 2010. There will be 9 simultaneous sessions for 3 days. Everything from beginning how-to sessions to brainstorming discussions and more. It is designed for Advanced Therap Provider Administrators as well as serving as a regional conference for the New York/mid-Atlantic region. It is also a good confernce for new agencies just starting up to attend.

4) Our user groups are almost “mini-conferences” so I thought I would list them here. Tomorrow there is one in New York City. We have had them both in person and over the phone/internet. They are both regionally based by state or topic based.

If you have questions on which type of conference is best for you or your agency – just ask.

We recently posted information about a New York City User Group meeting for November 20 to be hosted by Services for the Underserved.

Our user groups are often held as webinars over the phone and internet. We also hold many meetings in person. We recently held meetings in Buffalo and Monitcello New York as well as Washington DC and Hartford, CT.

One benefit for me personally for a New York City User Group is that the meeting will be close enough to my house that I could actually walk to the meeting after dropping my kids at school and still be on time. I will probably take the subway though -as it is about 3 miles from where I live.

The New York meetings will have a mix of national and local issues – including using Therap to help comply with OMRDD regulations, discussions of electronic signature issues in New York, medicaid service coordinator issues and more topics.

There is a longer list on the site including phone user groups for North Dakota and South Dakota. The Oregon user group will be incorporated into the conference being held in Salem, Oregon in 2 weeks.  And of course we have our annual national provider administrator conference coming up in Fishkill, NY in February

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We are scheduling a series of user groups over the next couple of months as online webinars.

They basically fit two broad categories. One is state specific user groups (Montana, Missouri, Minnesota, North Dakota, Florida, etc). We will be discussing some state specific issues including how surveyors in specific states are dealing with electronic signatures, dealing with state requirements and state forms, as well as some general system topics.

The second set of webinar/user groups are topics such as Using Therap to meet Ancor’s performance excellence initiative, using Therap for Acquired Brain Injury, a discussion with Therap and College of Direct Support users of the interface and national topics.

If there are topics you think would make for good webinars let us know. We also have many more topics for discussion at our February National Provider Association Conference in Fishkill.