12/19/2020

Today's COVID-19 Report: Monday, December 21, 2020

Monday, December 21, 2020

Here are the latest need-to-know updates for Monday, December 21 regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.

A reminder to all members

Check LeadingAge's FAQs and Resources on COVID-29 Vaccines and Issues Surrounding Vaccinations frequently. The most recent update includes Q&A on implications of mandating the vaccine for staff

In Today's Report

• State-mandated testing frequency increasing for all Assisted Living, for some Nursing Facilities      
• LeadingAge webinar for CVS vaccine distribution partners
• Vaccine process challenges communicated to state        
• CompManagement Health Systems, Inc and CareWorks of Ohio, Ltd merging
  
• LeadingAge Need to Know

State-mandated testing frequency increasing for all Assisted Living, for some Nursing Facilities              

Ohio Department of Aging (ODA) Director Ursel McElroy announced to the associations today that effective immediately the testing cadence in all assisted living facilities will increase to once per week; residents’ testing will continue to be on an as-needed strategic basis. The testing cadence in all nursing homes will increase to twice weekly; the majority of the state’s nursing homes are already testing at this cadence.

A new survey has been created for assisted living providers to indicate their choice of testing approach (e.g. one week PCR followed by one week of BinaxNOW, etc.) on the ODA/ODH website. A facility could choose to have the state-supported testing continue every other week as it is currently scheduled, supplementing with its own testing tools on the alternating weeks; it could choose to have state support for every week; or it could choose to opt-out of any support from the state.   

Note: Assisted living facilities on shared campuses with nursing facilities will be given the choice of aligning testing days, e.g. if the NF is testing on Tuesday and Friday, the assisted living could choose either Tuesday or Friday as its testing date.

As with nursing facilities, if the assisted living facility is receiving any shipments of BinaxNOW tests directly from the Department of Health & Human Services, the state will offset its shipment of supplies to the facility accordingly.

LeadingAge webinar for CVS vaccine distribution partners

Join LeadingAge on Tuesday, December 22 at 1:00PM to hear from LeadingAge and experts from CVS/Omnicare as they discuss the Pharmacy Partnership for Long-Term Care Program for COVID-19 Vaccinations. They will provide the most up to date information on how CVS is managing the vaccination process and will answer questions from LeadingAge members who have been assigned CVS as their vaccine provider. They will also provide the latest set of resources for providers to help educate staff and residents as well as elements of distribution of the COVID-19 Vaccine. Register for the webinar by clicking here.

Vaccine process challenges communicated to state

This morning Ohio’s long-term care associations met with Director McElroy to discuss challenges that are emerging across the sector related to Ohio’s vaccine distribution plan. We described challenges members have shared which include: lack of communication from the pharmacies (i.e. still waiting to hear if a facility is actually scheduled), confusing information received from the pharmacy (for example, receiving many emails within a short timeframe with changing dates/times/Clinic IDs), no response from a pharmacy hotline, and uncertainty as to where and to whom to direct questions and in some cases, conflicting answers to important operational questions.

The state is meeting with the four pharmacies representing Ohio’s Pharmacy Partnership and promised to raise each area of concern for best ‘next steps’. The state appreciated hearing of the concerns, and is working diligently to ensure that vaccines are distributed as quickly as possible, as efficiently as possible, in as orderly a process as possible, in an effort to stop the surge and save older Ohioans’ lives. We will communicate responses to the challenges and recommendations for troubleshooting as soon as they are received. Please continue to report challenges to COVID19@leadingageohio.org.

CompManagement Health Systems, Inc and CareWorks of Ohio, Ltd merging

CompManagement Health Systems, Inc. (CompManagement MCO) is excited to share the news of its merger with CareWorks of Ohio, Ltd. (CareWorks MCO), effective today, December 21. This merger will accompany a name change to Sedgwick Managed Care Ohio (Sedgwick MCO).

Sedgwick, CompManagement’s parent company, acquired CareWorks in 2019. For the past 16 months, the teams at CareWorks and CompManagement have partnered to develop best practices to ensure outstanding outcomes remain available to our members.

Things to note below for members who utilize CompManagement Health Systems:

• Your MCO service team will remain the same. Your Case Examiner, Nurse Case Manager and Account Executive will continue to work with you, your employees and your organization.
• This does not impact the administration of our group rating or group retrospective rating programs.

Again, there will be no change in MCO contacts for facilities or their injured workers as a result of this merger. For additional information, we invite you to visit www.SedgwickMCO.com.

LeadingAge Need to Know: COVID-19 – December 21, 2020

LeadingAge shares the latest coronavirus news and resources with members twice each weekday. This morning's update featured information on Three Days of Ageism.

Check out the full report here.

Questions

Please send all questions to COVID19@leadingageohio.org. Additionally, members are encouraged to visit the LeadingAge Ohio COVID-19 Working Group facebook group to pose questions to peers and share best practices. LeadingAge is continuing its daily calls for all members.  To participate in these daily online updates, members should register here.  

LeadingAge Ohio is working to ensure that the information in our daily alerts, on our website, and all coronavirus-related communications is as accurate as possible. However, LeadingAge Ohio makes no guarantees about the accuracy of the information.