T
he Alliance has adopted a new strategy to help
promote quality care for our members. One
important part of ensuring our members’
values and wishes are honored is the completion of a
POLST form. The POLST form states what kind of
medical treatment patients want toward the end of
their lives. The form is printed on bright pink paper,
and both the physician and patient sign the form.
The POLST allows seriously ill patients to have more
control over their end-of-life care. The Alliance has
added the POLST form as a new CBI measure; please
review the article on page 4 of this bulletin, “2014 CBI
Updates,” for details. To discuss the POLST form with
Alliance staff, please contact Julio Porro, MD, Medical
Director, at
(831) 430-5551
, or Peg Behan, Quality
Improvement Manager, at
(831) 430-2630
.
F
ull implementation of
the new Staying Healthy
Assessment (SHA), as part
of the Initial Health Assessment
(IHA) and subsequent health
evaluation visits, is required
by DHCS by April 1, 2014.
All Alliance network PCPs for
Medi-Cal members will need to
discard the old SHAs and utilize
the updated SHA. The Alliance
Physician Orders
for Life-Sustaining
Treatment (POLST)
Resources Available for Implementing
the Staying Healthy Assessment
Quality Improvement nurses are
required to begin scoring provider
use of the updated SHA beginning
April 1, 2014.
The Alliance is committed to
partnering with our PCPs to meet
DHCS’ required use of the updated
SHAs. You may download the
SHA in English, as well as 11 other
California threshold languages,
from the DHCS website at
You may order paper SHAs from
the Alliance in English, Spanish,
and Hmong. The order form for
the SHA is available on the Alliance
website a
Support for implementation of
the updated SHA is available in
several formats. Current DHCS
resources available at
will
include: Behavioral Risk Topics
At-A-Glance, Adult and Pediatric
Questions by Age Group, and the
Instruction Sheet for the Provider
Office. Future resources will include
a training module and fillable PDF
forms.
Additional support offered by the
Alliance includes an informational/
training module on the IHA
and the updated SHA available
on the Provider Portal. Alliance
Quality Improvement nurses are
also available to assist if you have
questions:
●●
Kelly Salazar
(831) 430-5767
●●
Dominique Teaford
(831) 430-2631
DECEMBER 2013
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PROVIDER NEWS
