Preparation for Joy

We are beginning to prepare for Joy's arrival. As Kristy shared, she will be joining us for the Leadership Summit  and I hope you'll all give her a warm welcome. For those who may wonder, I have confirmed that her last name is pronounced dee-mar-ray-lanz.

I have begun starting to schedule introduction meetings for her and will put an orientation schedule together. I will work FT alongside her for the first two weeks in May and then work PT through May. The board is contracting with me, for consults that may be valuable after June 1st. When I first started it was incredibly valuable to spend some time at an agency, learning about home care. Let me know if you are interested/willing to host Joy.

Board Policies

As requested, I have added the 10 basic responsibilities (from the book we read in 2025) to the board policies and made a few minor tweaks to the document. Please take time to review this revised policy.

Media Coverage

An investigative journalism organization is interested in writing a story about the impact that the ICE surge and the new restrictions on immigration are having on the caretaker industry, specifically as it relates to the elderly. They have reached out asking for someone to talk to the writer about the big picture, both what has happened, and what it means for the long and short term future. I haven't heard enough input regarding the impact of ICE to represent the industry on this topic. Would one of you feel comfortable doing so - or have a suggestion on who I might reach out to?

Advocacy Initiatives

Tensions have been high at the legislature and they remain focused on fraud, waste, and abuse.  I will forward Anni's update separately, for those that are interested in the details. On a brighter note, the MHCA bill is laid over for inclusion in the House Policy Omnibus bill and the Senate version is anticipated to be added to the Senate Finance Omnibus bill.

CMS has recently flagging roughly 500 Medical Assistance claims and is requesting specific supporting documents for each of those claims. We understand that approximately half of the revalidations have been completed.

I have reached out to MDH to share my concern about home care not being included in the first round of Minnesota's federal Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) funding. The Health Policy Division Director, whom I know fairly well admitted that "I don't understand too much about how the relationships between the home care agency, a primary provider, and other partners work in practice." She has offered to discuss this and I have a meeting scheduled to discuss this.
The Alliance has drafted a very long letter to CMS in response to CMS' RFI related to Comprehensive Regulations To Uncover Suspicious Healthcare (CRUSH). CRUSH is part of the second Trump administration's focus on fraud, waste and abuse. The RFI is designed to solicit feedback on potentially fraud-focused regulatory changes that could be included in a potential future proposed rule. The 28 page response is attached for those who are interested in the details. We will include a high-level summary in the next Informer.

Kind Regards,

Kathy Messerli
Executive Director
Minnesota Home Care Association

2909 S. Wayzata Blvd. | Minneapolis, MN 55405
Direct: 651.635.0038 | Main: 651.635.0607
www.mnhomecare.org<http://www.mnhomecare.org/page/A17> | kmesserli@mnhomecare.org<mailto:kmesserli@mnhomecare.org>

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