NRAA
Diane Wish
NRAA President
With the NRAA annual meeting just around the corner Oct. 5-7 in New Orleans, Renal Business Today caught up with NRAA President Diane Wish to discuss what to expect at the meeting, and issues renal administrators need to be aware of in the next year.
What has been the biggest success for NRAA during your presidency, so far?
There are two things. The biggest one was the development of our NRAA HIE. All providers that have electronic medical records will be able to batch submit, in addition to the three LDOs. It’s a huge deal. The second thing is hiring an executive director. We have a full-time volunteer board, and we’ve been doing that ever since our inception. There are so many things coming up right now and there are a lot of new things we can do, but with a volunteer board we really need some additional human resources to carry these things through. There are limited expectations for a volunteer board. They work very hard and put a lot of hours in, but the do have day jobs. We’re in the process of hiring that person, and we are going to be able to announce that at the annual meeting.
What has been the biggest challenge?
The biggest challenge was getting this NRAA HIE—dealing with all of the potential political issues—but it has worked out well. Anybody who has an EMR will be able to work with their vendor to have the data go from their computer into the NRAA HIE, and then the HIE will transmit it to CMS. It doesn’t matter what kind of EMR anybody has. It’s a wonderful service. Also, there are some small providers that don’t have EMRs, so initially, they are going to have to do it manually, but one of the things we are going to work on for the next phase of this is to work with the clinical labs to figure out what to do to have the facilities release the data so that the labs could send the data via the HIE to CMS.
Given the fast-changing landscape in renal care, what kind of skills does an administrator need today that he or she didn’t need 10 or 15 years ago?
Multitasking is important. There are just so many things going on. They need to have the ability to access information to know what’s going on so they know what they need to be doing and what questions to ask. Access to information is critical. It’s also helpful to have some sort of network with other people who are having similar issues, so they don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time a problem comes up. Because of the bundling and everything, they need to make sure they can get the best prices for all of the goods and services that they have to buy. These are all of the things the NRAA hopes to be able to provide for the SDOs out there. We are also in the process of redesigning our website, which will be launched at the annual meeting, as well. We want to be a resource for all small providers.
It seems the NRAA often balances current events with workplace issues at its conferences. This year there is a session focusing on workplace burnout. How important is it for administrators to stay vigilant in keeping themselves balanced?
It’s critically important for administrators, as well as the rest of their staff. On the administrative level they have a gazillion things they have to figure out how to deal with in addition to the staff on the front end. They have different kinds of priorities, and they have burnout as well. There is burnout whether you are dealing with the bundling piece, billing, balancing costs with quality of care, or dealing with patients. The reasons why the front-end staff burn out and the reasons why the administrators burn out are different, but what they need to do to prevent that is probably similar.
What is one issue that renal administrators need to keep their eye on as we move into 2012?
The big thing is the new rules for the QIP [Quality Incentive Program] for 2012 and 2013. Right now, I’m very concerned with some of the things in the proposed rule, especially the penalties. It is on a more graduated scale now, but next year you could have exactly the same quality and have up to a 2 percent penalty even though you didn’t have a penalty this year. It’s very scary.
