I am looking for the course slides/hand out for Jo Puntil's course on Trends in the ICU, Managing the Medically Fragile patient from 9/13/08 (Sacramento).
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Katie

I just heard that if a patient has failed a bedside swallow clinical assessment, Medicare's new regulations require an imaging study. Has anyone else heard this?

The basic principles and concepts of neuromuscular electrical stimulation will be taught and the VitalStim® Therapy protocol will be extensively reviewed and practiced. The participants will receive one-on-one attention from two instructors, a certified SLP and a PT. Through extensive hands-on labs; attendees will apply the theory of neuromuscular electrical stimulation to the treatment of dysphagia. This exclusive program will provide participants with the building blocks to implement a successful VitalStim® Therapy program and will add value to therapists, facilities, and most of all patient care!

I am currently seeing a patient in our ARU who has significant dysphagia and cognitive problems s/p TBI. He resides in Alta Loma, I am looking for SLP's with experience in these areas to refer him to for OP follow up.

My pediatrician wants to know for her own son. Her 4 year old son is having difficulty w/articulation, including but not limited to a w substitution for r. (That's all she could really tell me). I haven't worked with kids in over 10 years. She is wondering if her son needs his frenulum clipped? Anyone out there have experience with this? Do we ever recommend this anymore unless its a feeding issue? Thanks!

I do outpatient therapy with adults in a hospital in Sacramento. I am having some conflicts with the billing dept. at the hospital where I work. They are sending back all my evaluations for patients with cognitive disorders, saying that they can't bill for them because the language in my evaluations does not match any ICD-9 codes allowed by the LCD for northern CA (Saw-Palmetto). My boss and I looked at the list of codes allowed by Saw Palmetto and found that there are indeed no longer any codes that allow SLPs to treat cognitive disorders due to stroke. There is one code allowed for TBI patients only (799.52- Cognitive Communication deficit).

Advance FEES Course at Stanford Hospital

DAY 1 - Friday, May 20, 2011 4-6pm scope passing with Otolaryngology

Day 2 - May 21, 2011
Special Guest Faculty:
Joe Murray, PhD, CCC-SLP, BRS-S

This course is an advanced course for those who have
had some experience with FEES. The course is designed
to advance the clinician’s knowledge in normal
anatomy, technical skills, diagnostic evaluations,
treatment approaches and billing. The course will
facilitate the development and refinement of clinical
skills for managing this patient population. The
instructional format consists of lectures, digital imaging,
discussion, live demonstrations and hands-on
practice. Don’t miss this opportunity to see and hear
our impressive faculty.
Learning Objectives:

I have recently come across a situation due to "new technology". Working in SNF's and writing diet orders was always pretty straight forward as we were able to be creative based on a patient's needs. Whenever a patient is on nectar thick liquids, then I write orders to puree the fruit (due to the "sugary" water in the fruit). With diet orders being computerized, there is no provisions for being creative/flexible! I was recently told that I won't be able to write orders to puree fruit/soup for a patient on NTL if the patient is otherwise on a regular or mech. soft diet.
Has anyone else come across this problem???
Woodsey77@aol.com

I wanted to pass along a note I read when accessing the State of
California SLP/Aud Board website that would be of interest to al
members:"Attention to all of my Licensed California Speech 
Language Pathologist FB friends: Beginning February 7, 2011, your 
street address of record will be displayed on our Web site under 
the License Look-up feature. If you currently use your home address
as your address of record, you may want to consider changing it to
your business address or a PO BOX."
http://www.speechandhearing.ca.gov/

Has anyone treated a person with ataxic dysarthria with the diagnosis of Sjogren's syndrome? I have a 45 year old woman who is undergoing testing to confirm Sjogren's with a moderate ataxic dysarthria. I haven't seen this before and was wondering if anyone else has come across it. Assuming the speech treatment will be the same as any other diagnosis?