Pennsylvania Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding announced that Pennsylvanians can get their PA Farm Show food fix at an outdoor Fall Food Fest in November. The fest will take place at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex & Expo Center from November 13-15, 2020.

“While our traditional Pennsylvania Farm Show in January has transitioned to virtual with public health and safety in mind, we know that everyone’s been wondering how they’ll get their favorite Farm Show foods,” said Redding. “The answer is the Fall Food Fest!

“We’re excited to welcome some of your Farm Show fan favorites to the fest – including milkshakes, fried mushrooms, French fries, pulled pork and more – along with some loyal food truck vendors,” added Redding. “We hope Pennsylvanians will come out to support, and taste, Pennsylvania agriculture.”

The Fall Food Fest will take place in the North Lot of the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex & Expo Center from Friday, November 13 through Sunday, November 15. Vendors will be open from 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM daily.

While the fest will not include the full offering of the traditional Farm Show food court, many fan favorites will be available from the following vendors:

• PA Dairymen’s Association (Saturday & Sunday only)
• PA Livestock Association
• PA Mushroom Farmers
• PA Potato Growers
• Snyder’s Concessions
• Rachel’s Soft Pretzels (Friday only)
• Forrests Feeds Co.
• German Roasted Nuts
• Uglies Acres
• Hillbilly Jerky
• Whispering Brooke Cheese Haus
• Chocolate Moonshine
• Pennsylvania Beekeepers Association

A full menu of product offerings is available online.

“We’re thrilled to see a new event at the PA Farm Show Complex & Expo Center,” said Visit Hershey & Harrisburg President & CEO Mary Smith. “The facility and its hardworking staff are a crucial component of the region’s local economy and tourism success. We applaud the extraordinary efforts made to safely host the Fall Food Fest in our destination.”

Parking is free for this outdoor event, where food and beverages will be available for purchase to grab-and-go only. Onsite seating will not be available. Masks are required onsite and patrons are asked to be respectful of six-foot social distance while waiting in vendor lines.

The virtual 2021 Pennsylvania Farm Show is scheduled to take place from Saturday, January 9-Saturday, January 16, 2021. Virtual events will be focused on education and awareness for both the general public and the agriculture industry.

On October 29, CMS issued a final rule that finalizes routine updates to the home health payment rates for Calendar Year (CY) 2021 in accordance with existing statutory and regulatory requirements. This rule also finalizes the regulatory changes related to the use of telecommunications technology in providing care under the Medicare home health benefit.

CMS estimates that Medicare payments to Home Health Agencies (HHAs) in CY 2021 will increase in the aggregate by 1.9 percent, or $390 million, based on the finalized policies. This increase reflects the effects of the 2.0 percent home health payment update percentage ($410 million increase) and a 0.1 percent decrease in payments due to reductions in the rural add-on percentages mandated by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 for CY 2021 ($20 million decrease). This rule also updates the home health wage index including the adoption of revised Office of Management and Budget statistical area delineations and limiting any decreases in a geographic area’s wage index value to no more than 5 percent in CY 2021.

This final rule also:

• Finalizes Medicare enrollment policies for qualified home infusion therapy suppliers
• Updates the home infusion therapy services payment rates for CY 2021
• Finalizes a policy excluding home infusion therapy services from home health services as required by law
• Finalizes policies under the Home Health Value Based Purchasing Model published in the interim final rule with comment period, as required by law

For More Information:

• Final rule
• Home Health Prospective Payment System website
• HHA Center webpage
• Home Health Patient-Driven Groupings Model webpage
• Home Infusion Therapy Services website
• Full text of Fact Sheet

On November 2, CMS issued a final rule that updates payment policies and rates under the End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) Prospective Payment System (PPS) for renal dialysis services furnished to beneficiaries enrolled in Original Medicare on or after January 1, 2021. This rule also updates the Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) dialysis payment rate for renal dialysis services furnished by ESRD facilities to individuals with AKI and finalizes changes to the ESRD Quality Incentive Program.

The final CY 2021 ESRD PPS base rate is $253.13, which represents an increase of $13.80 to the current base rate of $239.33. This amount reflects the application of the updated wage index budget-neutrality adjustment factor (.999485), the addition to the base rate of $9.93 to include calcimimetics, and a productivity-adjusted market basket increase, as required by section 1881(b)(14)(F)(i)(I) of the Act (1.6 percent), equaling $253.13 (($239.33 x .999485) + $9.93 x 1.016 = $253.13).

CMS finalized the following:

• Update to the ESRD PPS wage index to adopt the 2018 Office of Management and Budget delineations with a transition period
• Changes to the eligibility criteria and determination process for the Transitional add-on Payment adjustment for New and Innovative Equipment and Supplies (TPNIES)
• Expansion of the TPNIES to include new and innovative capital-related assets that are home dialysis machines
• Change to the low-volume payment adjustment eligibility criteria and attestation requirement to account for the COVID-19 public health emergency

For More Information:

• Final rule
• Press release
• Full text of fact sheet

2020 Scorecard continues to build upon a new era of accountability in Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program

Today, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the third annual update to its Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Scorecard. The Scorecard is the signature Medicaid accountability initiative that highlights state and federal performance on the administration and health outcomes of the Medicaid and CHIP programs that collectively account for approximately $600 billion in annual spending and serve over 74 million Americans. For the first time, the Scorecard now provides identified per capita spending data across all states, highlighting variation in program costs alongside the quality and performance data. First released in 2018, the Medicaid and CHIP (MAC) Scorecard is a key part of President Trump’s efforts to ensure greater transparency and accountability of the nation’s largest health coverage programs.

“From the beginning of his administration, President Trump has made giving states more flexibility to provide high quality accessible care for our most vulnerable citizens on Medicaid and CHIP a priority,” said Administrator Seema Verma. “At the same time, we also recognize that with greater autonomy must come greater accountability. The Medicaid and CHIP Scorecard provides unprecedented transparency on cost and quality across state Medicaid and CHIP programs.”

This year’s release builds on the success of the previous Scorecards with a variety of updates and improvements for users, including the debut of a new way to view state-specific data on the Medicaid.gov State Profile “Quality of Care” section.  CMS has also improved the overall design and navigation across the 2020 MAC Scorecard to enhance the user experience.

The Scorecard includes healthcare quality measures of asthma medication management for children and adults as well as a measure of follow-up care for adults after an emergency department visit for mental illness. It also contains new administrative accountability measures including CMS and state approval times for managed care contract reviews; and CMS approval times for enhanced federal funding to support states’ eligibility, enrollment and information technology systems.

The 2020 Scorecard provides per capita expenditure data across all states. For the 2018 T-MSIS based per capita expenditure data, seventeen states had a high level of data usability, and an additional eleven states showed a moderate level of data usability.  The remaining states fell into the category of having a low level of data usability. The median per capita expenditures, based on CMS calculations, for all states in 2018 is $8,126, with a range of $1,807 in Puerto Rico to $14,387 in North Dakota.

This year, new data were added to the MAC Scorecard’s National Context page.  For example, these new data show the percentage of each state’s population that is enrolled in Medicaid, which ranges from 9.0% to 36.3 % and that nationally, about half of those enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP are children. The National Context page also has new data on the national percentage of beneficiaries enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP by eligibility group and the national rate of improper payments in Medicaid and CHIP.

Further, the national context now provides information on the percentage of Medicaid beneficiaries currently enrolled in Medicare (i.e., dually eligible beneficiaries); the percentage of dually eligible beneficiaries in programs that integrate the delivery of Medicare and Medicaid benefits; and the approval status for states’ transition plans for home and community-based services. For example, nearly half of all states (23) have a Medicaid population where 11.8%-24.2% are dually eligible beneficiaries and 36 states now enroll dually eligible beneficiaries in integrated care programs. The addition of these new data in the Scorecard help to further underscore the importance of understanding the dually-eligible population’s role in the Medicaid program.

CMS continues to engage stakeholders in identifying enhancements to the MAC Scorecard, including receiving input from Medicaid agencies through a collaboration with the National Association of Medicaid Directors.

CMS analyzed trends in median state performance on a subset of Child and Adult Core Sets measures that are included in the MAC Scorecard’s State Health System Performance pillar. Under this pillar, five states reported all measures in Federal Fiscal Year (FFY) 19: Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Tennessee and Washington. Across all states that reported, performance improved from FFY 2017 to FFY 2019 on several measures, suggesting progress in the quality of care provided to Medicaid and CHIP beneficiaries. These measures include:

• Well-Child Visits in the First 15 Months of Life (performance improved from 60.2% to 65.1%)
• Adolescent Well-Care Visits (performance improved from 44.9% to 50.7%)
• Immunizations for Adolescents (performance improved from 74.5% to 79.2%)
• Percentage of Eligibles Who Received Preventive Dental Services (performance improved from 48.2% to 49.0%)
• Comprehensive Diabetes Care: Hemoglobin A1c Poor Control (performance improved from 40.9% to 38.3%). Lower rates are better for this measure.

Overall, under the State Health System Performance pillar, states that reported for FFY19 have opportunities to improve in measures such as: emergency department utilization rate for children and adolescents; the percentage of children ages 3 to 6 who had at least one well-child visit with a primary care provider; the percentage of women delivering a live birth who had a timely postpartum care visit; and inpatient hospital admission rates for short-term complications of diabetes (e.g., diabetic ketoacidosis, hyperosmolarity) in adults ages 18 and older.

The State and Federal Administrative Accountability pillar measures show, for example, that the percentage of State Plan Amendments and 1915 waivers approved in within the first 90 day review period has increased between 2016 and the second quarter of 2020.

When viewing data in the MAC Scorecard, CMS would caution against making direct state-to-state comparisons based solely on data presented. For example, for measures drawn from Child and Adult Core Set, reporting methods can vary among states. States have access to different data on populations covered under fee-for-service as compared to populations covered under managed care. This variation in data availability can impact measure performance. Users should review the state-specific measure notes to better understand states’ reported rates. CMS is committed to working with states to improve standardized measure calculation and reporting which will increase the ability to do direct state-to-state comparisons in the future.

CMS is committed to working with states to improve standardized measure calculation and reporting on measures across the Scorecard. As with other measurement-focused initiatives, CMS offers states technical assistance and quality improvement opportunities to assist states in collecting and reporting measures displayed in the Scorecard, as well as sharing best practices to support improved state performance.

To view the 2020 MAC Scorecard, please visit: https://www.medicaid.gov/state-overviews/scorecard/index.html  

For more information pertaining to the 2020 MAC Scorecard, please visit:

https://www.medicaid.gov/media/file/2020-medicaid-chip-scorecard-factsheet.pdf

The Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence (PCADV) and the Office of Child Development and Early Learning (OCDEL) have teamed up to create a domestic violence awareness toolkit to educate family support workers and Family Supports staff on how domestic violence may impact the clients and families they serve while screening for intimate partner violence. The toolkit also aims to provide domestic violence programs with a deeper understanding of the OCDEL network and the services their programs provide within all communities across the Commonwealth.

Research shows that exposure to violence, especially during childhood, adolescence and young adulthood can significantly increase the likelihood of serious physical, emotional, and behavioral health problems. Children who live with domestic violence are also at increased risk to become direct victims of child abuse and are at an increased risk of becoming perpetrators themselves. Children who have been exposed to domestic violence often learn destructive lessons about the use of violence and power in relationships. They may also believe that it is acceptable to exert control or relieve stress by using violence, or that violence is in some way linked to expressions of intimacy and affection. Children also associate experienced abusive tactics with their view of adulthood, and how adults behave.

Trauma can be exacerbated by environmental factors and relational behaviors. During COVID-19, health professionals are urging the public to use wear face masks to help mitigate the spread of the virus. A face mask can activate a fear response, though, according to the National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma, & Mental Health.

The National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma & Mental Health (NCDVTMH) offers a tip sheet about face mask requirements using an accessible, culturally responsive, and trauma-informed approach, which can help in interactions with parents, caregivers, and children.

Partnerships between PCADV and OCEL’s programs are fundamental to preventing, and appropriately intervening in, domestic violence. Collaborating at the local level is key to building capacity to fully support survivors. Cross education allows staff from both systems an opportunity to connect and understand the best ways to develop protocols, make warm referrals, and engage in professional development.

With October being Domestic Violence Awareness Month, both OCDEL and PCADV wanted to support survivors of domestic violence. Both organizations realize that communities are stronger together and coordinated agency collaboration to make resources widely available to better support survivors is a step closer to ending domestic violence.

Domestic Violence Awareness Month serves as a reminder that domestic violence isn’t a private matter. It affects the safety and well-being of whole families and communities and can quickly turn lethal. In 2019, 112 women, men, and children lost their lives from domestic violence. Additional statistics about domestic violence fatalities can be found in PCADV’s 2019 Fatality Report.

If you or someone you know is in an abusive situation call the 24/7 National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, text “LOVEIS” to 22522, or chat online: thehotline.org. If you are in immediate danger, contact 911.