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y the time you read this, the Symposium on Regulatory Issues for Management in Long-Term Care (SORIM LTC) will have ended, but our coverage of this unique conference is just beginning. Aside from affording its attendees the rare opportunity to interact and work with state and federal officials from the agencies whose regulations directly impact the success or failure of long-term care facilities, SORIM LTC featured sessions on a host of hot topics, including:
• Nursing home comeback stories
• The role of appropriate medications (F-Tags 329 and 425)
• Using Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs) to drive quality
• The role of the state agency in increasing quality in long-term care
• Reimbursement in long-term care: the CMS perspective.
       Look for articles on these and other topics covered at SORIM LTC in upcoming issues. Our coverage will include articles written by the federal and state officials who presented at the conference, transcriptions of their sessions, and articles written from the perspective of attendees. The June issue will also include an overall recap of SORIM LTC. Our goal is to not only inform you on the cutting-edge regulatory information but convey the importance of attending next year’s conference.

This Month’s Articles

       This issue features two articles—“Balancing Quality and the Bottom Line,” by Richard G. Stefanacci, DO, MGH, MBA, AGSF, CMD, and “Coding and Billing Systems for Dementia Care,” by Charles A. Crecelius, MD, PhD, FACP, CMD—related to the aforementioned hot topic of reimbursement. Also included are the fourth article in the “MIST Therapy® System: Thoughts on Therapy” series, a report from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on the progress of a pilot project on electronic prescribing, and articles on the following topics: determining the etiology of common skin lesions, expanding to meet consumer demand, preparing for a deposition, and using information systems to improve resident and family satisfaction. As always, thank you for reading ECPN.