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Sarah Shearer-Smith
PT, DPT, GCS, CEEAA, RAC-CTA
Sarah Shearer-Smith has spent all of her physical therapy career working with the geriatric population in various post-acute rehabilitation settings: skilled nursing, long-term care, memory care, and continuing care communities.
Before joining Consonus, she served in a multitude of roles for two national providers of skilled therapy, providing direct patient care, supervising both clinical and operational outcomes, and coordinating physical, occupational, and speech-language pathology services across multiple states.
Sarah now serves as the NW Director of Clinical Services for Oregon, Washington, and Nevada for Consonus Healthcare, where she is responsible for customer and therapist education surrounding federal/state regulations, assisting with the development of company compliance and clinical policies/procedures, coordinating clinical and documentation action plans, and training core clinical programs. In addition, she serves as both the Denial/Appeal Coordinator and, with the assistance of her Internship Coordinator, the SCCE coordinating PT, PTA, OT, OTA, and ST internships across all Consonus Healthcare sites.
She attended Loma Linda Medical University, where she earned her Master's degree in Physical Therapy (1999) and her Post-Professional Clinical Doctorate of Physical Therapy (2006), and is certified as a Geriatric Clinical Specialist/GCS (since 2007), Certified Exercise Expert for the Aging Adult/CEEAA (since 2017), AANAC Resident Assessment Coordinator-Certified (RAC-CT) (since 2018), AANAC Resident Assessment Coordinator-Certified Advanced (RAC-CTA) (since 2019), and Dementia Care Specialist (since 2018). Sarah is also a certified trainer for the APTA's Credentialed Clinical Instructor Program (CCIP).
She has served as a as a guest lecturer and trainer for various universities, state associations, long-term care associations, and continuing education events for diverse topics including: CMS guidelines, documentation best practices, management of Quality Indicators, caseload development/management, geriatric strengthening, falls prevention, balance system assessment/treatment strategies, and the assessment/treatment of patients with cognitive impairments and/or chronic conditions.
Courses with Sarah Shearer-Smith
Browse Course CatalogGroup and Concurrent Therapy: Modes of Treatment for the SNF Clinician
Presented by Sarah Shearer-Smith, PT, DPT, GCS, CEEAA, RAC-CTA
Group and Concurrent Therapy: Modes of Treatment for the SNF Clinician
The Patient-Driven Payment Model (PDPM) brings new opportunities to provide more efficient and cost-effective therapy services in the SNF setting by eliminating the financial penalties for group and concurrent therapy. With this opportunity, however, there are new requirements for billing and documenting these modes of therapy. This course will outline the technical requirements for providing group and concurrent therapy as well as provide tools for successful treatment delivery. Therapists and assistants will learn strategies to make group and concurrent therapy efficient, including how to select appropriate patients for these modes of delivery. Finally, ideas for specific group activities that can address individual impairments and achieve patient-specific outcomes will be discussed and demonstrated.
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