The Membership Organization of State Offices of Rural Health
NOSORH committees are great focal points for engaging in many NOSORH initiatives. Descriptions of all committees and contact information can be found on the NOSORH website.
Executive Committee –The committee met in March to plan for the follow up on the NOSORH strategy for 2019-2022, governance and committee structure and planning for the May, 2019 Board meeting.
Development- The Development Committee is actively working on the annual Sponsor Prospectus with a target distribution of mid-April. The Scope of Work and Compensation Survey Results can be found on the NOSORH website in the Members Only – Reports page. If you have interest in joining the Development Committee, please reach out to one of the committee co-chairs, Kylie Nissen or Graham Adams.
Policy Program Monitoring Team- The PPMT committee met on March 20th with a full agenda including a review of comments to CMS on the Hospital Star Rating system and a discussion on the new Medicare Emergency Triage, Treat, and Transport (ET3) model. More information on the ET3 model can also be found in the CMS Ambulance Open Door Forum. The next regular meeting of the PPMT committee will be Wednesday, April 24th at 3:00 pm ET. The comments submitted to CMS regarding the Hospital Star Rating can be found on NOSORH’s website, here.
JCREC- the members of the Joint Committee on Rural Emergency Care met last month to share organizational updates, discussed CMS/CMMI reimbursement changes relating to the ET3 and how to leverage National Rural Health Day to bring attention to rural EMS innovation and collaboration.
Thank you to the forty states who completed the RHC Committee survey last month. The survey was used to query SORH on the types and amounts of technical assistance provided by SORH to RHCs and other safety net providers in each state, and to help determine what resources need to be developed to assist SORH in this effort. The top priorities for SORH working with RHCs are:
SORH also indicated they need more resources for RHCs on Value Based Care, Primary Care Medical Homes, mock surveys, data, quality improvement, grant writing, Accountable Care Organizations, and telehealth.
The survey results will help the RHC Committee prioritize which resources to provide. Many states also indicated they are interested in participating in the RHC Institute, which is a 9-part webinar series designed to cover the basics of what an RHC is and help give SORH the capacity to provide technical assistance to RHCs on compliance, quality improvement, billing/coding, engagement in health reform, and more.
NOSORH would like to thank the RHC Committee co-chairs, Crystal Barter and Tammy Norville, along with John Gale and Penny Black for their contributions to the development of the survey. If your SORH does not currently participate in the RHC Committee, NOSORH invites you to participate. The RHC Committee meets every other month to facilitate sharing of state and partner resources. The next meeting is scheduled for June 19 at 2:00 pm ET. Contact Kassie Clarke for more information.