Certified Trainers Blog

Today for our Leadership Traning our team took a trek up to the hill to visit the Thoen Stone.  We talked about change, stress health and wellness.   It was a beautiful day!

http://pie.midco.net/treasuredude/thoen.html

Amy

So here is to raising your EP high and moving forward!

Bring on those May flowers. Gardens and fields are being plowed and planted in anticipation for the wonderful summer season that is fast approaching.  Memorial Day weekend is just around the corner; time for camping, cooking, and family gatherings.  I hope you all have a great time and be safe.

A couple of days ago, I read a wonderful article from Microsoft At Work.  The article talked about how to take control of your e-mail in different ways.  There were two areas that I really liked within this article that I would like to share with you.

First, it talked about setting up a reference system.  All you do is take your e-mails and categorize them by two different ways; Reference Information or Action Information.  With Reference Information e-mails, these are e-mails that just provide information to you as the receiver and they are e-mails that do not require action.  An e-mail that is notated as an Action Information e-mail, you the receiver are required to perform some type of action.

The last thing that this article talked about was the “Four Ds for Decision-Making”.  When dealing with e-mail, there are four things you should consider when trying to figure out what to do with the e-mail. “Delete It.  Do It.  Delegate It.  Defer It.”  By using this model for decision making, you as the receiver of the e-mail will be able to go through the e-mail quickly and effectively.

The full article can be viewed at http://www.microsoft.com/atwork/productivity/email.aspx.

Welcome to the herd two new smarty pants…both from Oregon (a very smart place, for sure!).

Susie Walton is the Associate Director for Pathway Enterprises in Medford, Oregon (way, way down south….). She knows LOTS AND LOTS and can lead you through billing and attendance, ISPs, provider administration and most other things you may come up with. I’m waiting on her blog (and dog pictures!).

As you can see above, Susie has excellent taste in friends.

Gina Loraine is of the highest quality…that is ‘cos she is the Training Quality Manager from Dungarvin in Portland, Oregon. She is never in her office as she is always running around teaching people things.

(I understand Gina.)

Gina also is a friend of Archie’s, having pug-sat in Salem…she, as Susie, has excellent taste in friends.

Welcome these guys! They are among the awesomest of the awesome…which would be all SIXTY (yes, I said it) of Therap’s Certified Trainers!

Allison

Greetings fellow Therap bloggers! Happy Mother’s Day to all the mother’s in the world. I believe summer is on the way in Minnesota, then again it could very well snow tomorrow…Yikes! I am still working on getting TMS up and running here at PRI. Although there is a slight hold on plans as we have our annual Golf tournament fundraiser next month. All hands are on deck to support our company to raise money. If anyone is interested in supporting Phoenix Residence let me know I will be delighted to help you. Everyone be safe out there in Therap world, enjoy the warm weather & happy blogging!

Greetings! This is my first post, and I thought I would share a picture (well, I did not take this, I “borrowed” it from the state website) of what we watched last evening.

herding cattle in Montana

While I was out visiting folks on our campus, I noticed one of the guys watching something intently. I looked over to see if I could figure it out. He was watching the cows in the adjacent field.  I had heard them earlier. Then I realized why they were so noisy – they were being herded!

I watched for just a moment as 3 cowboys were working the herd.  Then I walked into the house I had been planning to visit, to let some of the other folks know what was happening.  We went outside
and got to see a cowgirl gallop across campus – right between 2 of the houses! – to re-direct some of the cows who were headed the wrong way.  There were 2 or 3 other people on horses and a couple of cow dogs.  We saw lots of calves – they are so cute! – but it was not a large herd.  They walked on the street right next to the house where we were.  The cows going the wrong way were actually on the other side of the house, probably trying to drink some of the water in the irrigation ditch that runs through campus.

Sure did keep the cowboys busy and us entertained!

This morning, Justin did a completely awesome review of the new and upcoming features within Therap that will meet CCHIT standards, as Therap goes for Electronic Health Record (EHR) certification.

We are planning more sessions for certified trainers…so keep a look out!

Allison

Lorelei discusses quality assurance techniques! Very cool indeed!

Check it out! This is the latest in our series….

Allison

Colorado expects to impose caps on the number of targeted case management (TCM) units that can be billed per client served, limiting us to 240 x 15 minute units per fiscal year, starting with a limit of 60 units for April – June 2012. Although the proposal is still in draft, and April is now history, we are anticipating that it will become reality, and have been updating our TCM service authorizations to include those limitations. I created 3 month service authorizations to limit usage to 60 units, which I will edit if the caps do not become retroactive to April 1. Case managers will still be able to enter all of the real units used, but the service authorizations will prevent us from overbilling. We do have issues to address to deal with meeting the needs of some of our clients who have frequent contact with case managers. I pulled a billing report for the first three months of the year, and found a handful of individuals who had used well over 100 units just in those three months! We are brainstorming ways to help clients find alternative means of addressing their needs, not using their case manager as their one source of assistance or safety net, or whatever. It will be a challenge to avoid providing costly free services.

About two weeks ago, I had the privilege of representing our company on a committee meeting to discuss “Quality Assurance” among all service providers of both residential and day program service agencies. The meeting was conducted by the Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD). As the topic clearly suggests, the main goal of this committee was to ensure that, despite budget cuts at state level, with the inevitable consequences of reduced funding for the division, and consequently the deep cuts to rates paid to service providers, quality service can still be maintained.

As the discussions progressed, it became apparent to me that Therap can be a tool to help meet that objective. Here is the reason why: after using Therap for all these many years, I have come to know that for the most part, staff document what they have really done. In most cases they under-document. For those who may falsify what they actually did, it does not take that long before they are discovered. Because, when one makes a false claim, other staff will soon see that what was done is not what was reported.

A good example is where someone writes a t-log stating they swept, mopped and took out trash from a resident’s apartment. If that was not so, the incoming staff are going to see that it is not true and they are going to write about it. Since everyone reads what the t-log says, it becomes apparent to the staff who falsified information that their inaction was discovered and they can not report similar falsehoods without actually having done the job.

Therefore, the Therap system becomes not only a tool to ensure staff do what they are supposed to do and at the same time an evaluation tool for supervisors to tell, in part, who is doing what they are supposed to do, thus assuring quality service to the consumer. In retrospect, using Therap helps foster honesty, accountability and quality assurance.

Gov. Cuomo recently took steps to enact legislation that would strengthen protections for the state’s most vunerable citizens. The Governor’s proposal would require the establishment of an agency charged with monitoring and enforcing laws in place to protect individuals with developmental and other disabilities.

The full article can be found here!