James M. Berklan

Long-term care professionals know a lot. But at the top of the list has to be that you are saddled with too many tasks, many of them documentation-related, and you don’t have enough time to do all that’s called for.

So when I saw the headline to our top Daily Update item yesterday, I knew it should be a very big hit. You, our dear readers, did not disappoint.

“‘Unnecessarily time-consuming’ documentation may be on chopping block” was how the headline started. Talk about catnip for weary caregivers.

The real importance of that statement, however, is to whom it was attributed. That would be none other than Seema Verma, leader of all things Medicare and Medicaid, nursing homes’ top two payment sources.

It’s nice to have friends in high places. Even better if she speaks of clearing regulatory clutter. If anyone can get it done, it would be her since she is the administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Verma took direct aim at simplifying your work lives in a blog post published Tuesday. Among her possible solutions is a scaled-back payment and quality reporting system. Talk about catnip, dipped in chocolate sauce.

Although such themes have been fodder for campaign speeches for a while, Verma’s big reveal was that CMS is currently working on initiatives to be announced in coming months that will “ease the burden” of providers.

In addition, she and the administration promise you’ll be asked how CMS can simplify regulations and ease your burdens.

If you get the chance, tell Verma and crew that some of the ideas she mentions may be good for some niches of healthcare but not necessarily all. You, for example, do not want to pause or go backward one iota when it comes to electronic health records implementation.

That much all long-term care stakeholders already know for certain.

Follow Editor James M. Berklan @JimBerklan.