Situation Report | June 6, 2022
Agencies have three weeks to take action
Today, the state Department of Health (DOH) posted a “Dear Administrator Letter” (DAL) on the roles that home care and hospice providers are required to fill with their staff in the Health Commerce System (HCS) and some newly created backup roles, along with actions they must take within three weeks.
Updated information in the HCS roles is vital as the HCS is the primary mechanism that DOH uses to communicate with home care and hospice providers in New York State. The HCS is used for a multitude of purposes, including, but not limited to, targeted communications, access to applications, and collecting cost and statistical information from providers.
In emergency situations, it is imperative that DOH is able to communicate directly, whenever necessary, on urgent matters with the specific individuals holding leadership positions within an agency. Thus, agencies have a regulatory responsibility to maintain up to date business and after hours contact information for the agency leadership roles in the HCS Communications Directory.
In addition, the HCS should be accessed regularly, at minimum once per week and more frequently during an emergency to check for news announcements, alerts and other DOH communications.
Current contact information for authorized individuals with an active HCS account must be entered for each of the following roles for home care providers. DOH recommends two authorized individuals in each role below, except for the Administrator (one person with one to two individuals as “backups”):
- 24 by 7 Facility Contact
- Office of the Administrator
- Director, Home Care Patient Services or Director of Patient Services for Hospices
- Emergency Response Coordinator
- HPN Coordinator
- Criminal History Record Check Authorized Person
- Data Reporter
- Home Care Registry Agency Updater
- Home Care Registry Agency Viewer.
Additional roles are for agencies that operate a Personal Care Aide or Home Health Aide Training Program.
For hospices, DOH limits one individual to the Administrator and Medical Director roles with one to two individuals for backups.
Agencies are advised to assure that their agency’s HCS Coordinator modifies the contact information for these roles in the Directory accordingly, within three (3) weeks of June 2, 2022. All phone, email and text contact options must be completed with up-to-date information, for both business hours and after-hours options. After hours contacts must include cell phone numbers. Agency leadership should verify that the information entered for the Directory roles by their HCS Coordinator is correct.
After 3 weeks, DOH staff will review the Directory to assure that role assignments have been made/updated and will contact those agencies that have not completed their updates. Drills of this contact information will be conducted periodically to ensure maintenance and accuracy of this information.
DOH emphasized that, going forward, only the one person meeting the primary leadership role description should be assigned to each of the primary leadership roles listed in the DAL’s table. Any additional individuals currently assigned to that primary leadership role should be removed. One or two additional individuals can be assigned to the new backup role.
In the DAL, DOH reminds agencies that they must maintain the following HCS Directory contact information:
“At a minimum, twenty-four hour, seven-day a week contacts for emergency communication and alerts, must be designated by each agency in the HPN (now HCS) Communications Directory and current and complete updates of the Communications Directory reflecting changes that include, but are not limited to, general information and personnel role changes as soon as they occur, and at a minimum, on a monthly basis.”
Furthermore, “Duties of each user with an established HCS account include, contacting the HCS coordinator(s) at the HCS organization(s) for which they are to access the HCS at least 3 business days prior to any change in user’s HCS responsibilities or in user’s employment status affecting the standing of the account.” Home care and hospice agencies will have 10 business days to update their HCS account after notification of a change in HCS responsibilities.
Questions about these requirements or assistance needed with assigning HCS roles should be directed to DOH at (518) 408-1638 or hcreg@health.ny.gov.
Free training on how to use the HCS Communications Directory or other aspects of the HCS is available through the DOH Learning Management System (requires one to establish an account).