The draft plan describes priority activities for fiscal years 2011 and 2012 including responsible entities, timelines and measures. To review the document and provide commentary click here.

Note that a notice on the draft document is expected to be published in the July 26th issue of the Federal Register.

This notice on proposed rule-making details civil monetary penalties for nursing homes. The document number is CMS-2435-P and the direct link is here.

Joshua Rozovsky: Back in March, we reported that the FCC had issued a letter clarifying Rule 97.113, which prohibits the use of the amateur radio service for commercial purposes or for an employer in non-emergency situations.

Emergency communications drills are often conducted by hospitals and government services that involve licensed amateur radio operators who are employees. The FCC clarification made these employees' involvement in the drills unlawful.

The new rule reads as follows:

Section 97.113(a)(3) of the FCC rules:

(i) A station licensee or control station operator may participate on behalf of an employer in an emergency preparedness or disaster readiness test or drill, limited to the duration and scope of such test or drill, and operational testing immediately prior to such test or drill. Tests or drills that are not government-sponsored are limited to a total time of one hour per week; except that no more than twice in any calendar year, they may be conducted for a period not to exceed 72 hours.

Other restrictions in Part 97, such as power outputs, safe exposure limits, frequency allocations, control operator privileges, and the prohibition on encryption etc. still apply.

If you have any questions on the use of amateur radio or other backup communications services for your facility, please contact us.

The first report is for Medicare providers and gives new guidance and standards on language access services. As noted by the OIG, "...only 33 percent of Medicare providers offered services consistent with all four of OMH’s Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services in Health Care (CLAS) standards on language access services."

The second report focuses on Medicare plans and also discusses compliance with OMH's CLAS standards.

Joshua Rozovsky: Consider also the use of appropriately-credentialed American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters on staff or use of a video-interpretation service for this purpose. While an increasing number of staff may be "conversational" in ASL, their ASL competency may not be fluent enough in a medical setting or enough to properly inform the patient for consent purposes. This is true also for personnel with skills in other spoken languages - they may not be appropriately trained as "medical" translators.

While writing out questions and answers may be used in some situations, ASL does not use the same syntax or grammar as written English, and misunderstandings may occur (ASL is not simply a "signed" version of English).