SIDNEY – Shelby Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation was upgraded from one to four stars in the quality ratings from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
Shelby Skilled Nursing & Rehabilitation is a 50-bed skilled nursing and rehabilitation facility in a residential area of Sidney. They are a small, family-oriented facility that strives to make their residents feel like they are home, and not in a home. Specializing in physical, occupational and speech therapies, they offer long- and short-term stay packages and accept Medicare, Medicaid, and most insurances.
There are four main changes implemented in the last two years, that underlie the improved ratings, which are based on data generated in the last four quarters:
1) switching from contract workers to build an in-house therapy team for physical, occupational, and speech therapy services.
2) requiring additional staff training and certification for the therapy team for the treatment of individuals with Alzheimer’s disease
3) implementing corporate guidance and education, including having positions at the facility-level, to both ensure that Minimum Data Set (MDS) requirements are captured and that everything is being done in the documentation to capitalize on all person-centered care provided to residents
4) enacting weekly meetings and additional trainings for the MDS nurses (nurses that deal strictly with MDS documentation) and other facility staff
According to the CMS, “Quality measures are tools that help measure or quantify healthcare processes, outcomes, patient perceptions, and organizational structure and/or systems that are associated with the ability to provide high-quality health care and/or that relate to one or more quality goals for health care. These goals include effective, safe, efficient, patient-centered, equitable, and timely care.”
“The quality measure star rating indicates how well the facility is taking care of the residents’ physical and clinical needs. It’s based on a points rating system gathered from information that the facility submits to the CMS, explained Julie Farmer, clinical resource specialist for Aspire Regional Partners. “What we’ve done is we’ve implemented some daily things that we make sure we’re reviewing documentation that shows that we are taking care of the patients, and that’s starting to reflect in what we have submitted to CMS. The stars are based on what the facility submits through the MDS process.”
“An MDS is completed for each patient who is in a nursing home,” said Tasha Wilson, director of admissions and marketing at Shelby Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation. “It covers all the aspects of care for an individual — for example, mood, cognition, mobility, eating, toileting, and activities of daily living.”
The MDS is a standardized, primary screening and assessment tool of health status which forms the foundation of the comprehensive assessment for all residents of long-term care facilities certified to participate in Medicare or Medicaid. The MDS contains items that measure physical, psychological and psycho-social functioning. The items in the MDS give a multidimensional view of the patient’s functional capacities, and can be used to present a nursing home’s profile. The MDS now plays a key role in the Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement system and in monitoring the quality of care provided to nursing facility residents.
According to the CMS, the MDS “content has implications for residents, families, providers, researchers, advocates, stakeholders, and policymakers.”
That’s one reason it is an evolving tool. With the previous version, MDS 2, many individuals, the CMS said, “raised concerns about the reliability, validity, and relevance of the prior assessment instrument … because MDS 2.0 failed to include items that rely on direct resident interview, it failed to obtain critical information and effectively disenfranchised many residents from the assessment process. In addition, many users and government agencies expressed concerns about the quality and validity of the MDS 2.0 data.” Revisions to the MDS tool in 2010, with the release of version 3.0, addressed these criticisms. “MDS 3.0 was designed to improve the reliability, accuracy, and usefulness of the MDS, to include the resident in the assessment process, and to use standard protocols used in other settings. These improvements have profound implications” for measuring and assessing quality of care and, when warranted, revising current public policy.
The CMS system has a built-in “checks and balance system called an exception review,” said Farmer. An exception review is when the CMS “looks at MDSs that you submitted, and they make sure that you’re coding those MDSs appropriately.”
“What these exception reviews do is they come in and review what information is submitted to ensure that the data is accurate and complete,” Wilson clarified.
“We had one in the facility last year and we passed with flying colors,” Farmer said.
The mission of the Shelby Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation is “to provide individualized, compassionate and innovative healthcare services that will inspire each guest to achieve the full and meaningful life they desire.”
Those seeking rehabilitation services are considered “short-term” residents, that is, those residents staying up to a maximum of 100 days, according to the time allotted by Medicare, though some waivers are in place due to COVID-19. Medicare pays for 100 percent of care through the first 2o days, and after that, there is a co-pay covered by either private insurance, Medicaid, or must be paid out-of-pocket. Respite stays for caregivers are another category of short-term residents, and those usually run one to five days.
According to the Shelby Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation website, “rehabilitation therapy is available seven days a week and includes specialized programs like orthopedic rehabilitation, cardiac rehabilitation, post stroke, and post-surgical recovery … The facilities include a spacious rehabilitation gym for physical and occupational therapy.”
Rehabilitation employees include Ashton Boerger, therapy director, and a staff comprised of a physical therapist, an occupational therapist, and a speech therapist, as well as several physical and occupational therapy assistants.
“Among the skilled nursing services provided are IV therapy, pain management, wound care, respiratory services, peritoneal dialysis, feeding tube, chest drainage systems, palliative care coordination, and assistance with daily personal care,” the website says.
When selecting which long-term care, rehabilitation, or respite facility is right for oneself or a loved one, one of the oldest and best methods for making that decision is word-of-mouth recommendations.
On Dec. 27, 2021, rehabilitation guest, Robert W., said, “I came to rehab in October, and I wasn’t sure I would ever walk again. Not only am I walking out of here on my own, but I’ve made some great friends and had the best care. Now that I am home, I come back to Shelby for outpatient therapy with the same therapists I had when I was there, which makes me comfortable.”
On Feb. 3, 2021, the daughter of Ann B., a rehabilitation guest, said, “I can’t thank you all enough for what you did for my mom. You truly changed her life and our lives forever. Truly. Thank you.”
Conveniently located at 705 Fulton Street in Sidney, near hospitals, physician offices, dialysis and cancer centers, the primary service areas for Shelby Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation are Sidney, Anna, Botkins, Fort Lorraine, Jackson Center, Kettlersville, Minster, Port Jefferson, and Russia in Shelby County, as well as Miami and Auglaize counties.
For questions, contact Wilson by calling 937-492-9591 or emailing [email protected]. Learn more about general long-term care, aging, and medical insurance, by visiting the resources page on their website at https://www.shelbysnf.com/resources. Stay up to date with the Shelby Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation by following them on social media https://www.facebook.com/shelbysnf/.
