AHCA Members Meet with HHS Secretary Price to Discuss Maintaining Access to Quality Long Term Care

American Health Care Association (AHCA) President and CEO Mark Parkinson joined association members in a recent meeting with the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Tom Price, M.D., to discuss challenges the long term care profession faces as the nation’s population ages and the importance of maintaining access to quality long term care.

AHCA members discussed with Secretary Price the need for responsible regulation that supports and incentivizes quality improvement. Recent regulatory changes impose both redundant and unnecessary stipulations on providers and are not focused on improving care at the bedside. AHCA members specifically noted that some of the practices detailed in the Requirements of Participation, which the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued last October, interfere with person-centered care and day-to-day operations.

Secretary Price and AHCA members also discussed significant improvements in key quality measures across the long term care profession. In 2012, the Association launched its Quality Initiative, which challenges providers to improve key quality performance measures. Since the Initiative’s inception, member providers have successfully prevented more than 79,000 individuals from returning to the hospital within 30 days of their skilled nursing center stay and have reached or surpassed a nationwide goal in safely reducing antipsychotic usage by at least 30 percent.

Members in attendance at the meeting with Secretary Price included Tom Coble, Chair of AHCA Board of Governors, and President and CEO of Elmbrook Management Company; Bob Hagan, President of Sterling Healthcare, Inc.; Neil Pruitt, Jr., Chairman and CEO of PruittHealth.

(L-R): Neil Pruitt, Jr., Mike Cheek, Bob Hagan, Secretary Tom Price, Tom Coble, Mark Parkinson, and Dr. David Gifford