An Entirely New Paradigm for Post-Acute Health Care Management

The managers of residential care facilities we work with everyday report that the residential care and post-acute health care industry is changing at an alarming rate. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services has shifted its focus away from simply measuring volume, toward a pay-for-performance system focused on value and quality. The implications of this shift in payment processing and compliance procedures for management in post-acute care, nursing homes, and hospice facilities are vast, complex, and daunting. Managers are scrambling to measure quality outcomes, improve compliance, and emphasize the customer experience throughout their organizations.

Whorl Inside a Loop portrays one of the most creative and effective approaches developed by social workers. The characters in Whorl Inside a Loop, utilize creative arts therapy as an avenue to self-love, accountability, achievement, and freedom. This is “corrections” at its best.

Good Practice | Ethics | Law 

A THORNY ISSUE 

The ethical standards in many areas of social work are still being worked through the legal system. A particularly compelling example of evolving standards concerns social workers’ response to parents’ request to examine their children’s counseling records. At the beginning of the social worker-client relationship, social workers routinely discuss with minor clients and their parents the minors’ right to confidentiality and possible exceptions. Nonetheless, in many cases social workers encounter ethical challenges when parents ask to examine their child’s records because of their curiosity or because of their relevance to legal disputes. 

THE ACA 

Even though the political debate continues, the Affordable Care Act is now the law of the land. Its impact on hospitals and health networks is obvious. Its impact on social work is less evident, however. 

Social Service Agencies, both governmental and non-profit, are currently studying the productivity of their case workers. As caseloads increase and budgets restrict hiring, productivity is becoming topic number one. Agency management is desperately trying to isolate the working conditions that impede efficient workflow and demoralize an already overworked staff. 

What's in a Name? 

That Which We Call a Rose 

By Any Other Name 

Would Smell as Sweet 

-William Shakespeare 

I recently conducted a phone interview with the new director of a Child Protective Services program in a state out west. I was surprised at the turn our conversation took. 

What? Let me read this again; Foster Care to Prostitution Pipeline. I thought that's what it said. What is happening in our society?  Is there no end to how we will abuse the most vulnerable among us?