The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released its 2024 Measures Under Consideration (MUC) List as part of the Pre-Rulemaking Measure Review (PRMR) process. This list includes measures that could significantly impact Medicare quality reporting programs, including those relevant to home health agencies. CMS is seeking public feedback on these proposed measures, and HCAF encourages our members to participate.

Key Measures Impacting Home Health Agencies

The 2024 MUC List includes measures designed to:

• Improve outcomes: With 63% of the measures focusing on outcomes, including Patient-Reported Outcome-based Performance Measures (PRO-PMs), the proposed measures align with efforts to enhance patient care.
• Increase efficiency: Process and cost/resource use measures aim to streamline operations and resource allocation.
• Promote equity and engagement: 37% of measures focus on person-centered care, ensuring inclusivity in health care delivery.

These changes to the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS®) Home Health Care Survey introduce five updated measures to better capture patient experiences and improve the quality of care provided by Medicare-certified home health agencies:

1. Care of Patients: Evaluates home health patients' perspectives on staff attentiveness, courtesy, respect, compassion, and the effectiveness of services in supporting their health, as reported through standardized surveys.
2. Communications Between Providers and Patients: Assesses how effectively home health staff communicate with patients, focusing on clarity, responsiveness, active listening, and providing timely information or assistance to patients and their families.
3. Talk About Home Safety: Measures whether home health staff discussed strategies to enhance home safety, such as installing grab bars or removing tripping hazards, when care began.
4. Review Medicines: Evaluates whether home health staff reviewed a patient’s prescribed and over-the-counter medications, including discussing proper usage and timing, emphasizing medication safety and education.
5. Talk About Medicine Side Effects: Assesses whether home health staff discussed potential side effects of medications with patients during their care, promoting safety and patient understanding.

CMS recently introduced a web-mail mode for the CAHPS® Hospice Survey, allowing providers to administer surveys via email. This method invites respondents through email to complete a web-based survey, with non-respondents receiving a mailed follow-up. A 2021 pilot program demonstrated that this approach increased response rates by 13 percentage points compared to traditional mail-only surveys. Recognizing the benefits of this streamlined process, HCAF is advocating for CMS to implement a similar web-based submission tool for home health agencies to similarly reduce administrative burdens, improve data accuracy, and allow providers to focus more on patient care.

Why Your Input Matters

HCAF plans to submit comments on behalf of our members, advocating for practical, efficient, and equitable measures that support home health agencies. Your feedback is vital to shaping our comments and ensuring the voices of Florida home care providers are heard.

Additionally, CMS allows individual providers to submit their own comments. Engaging directly in this process is a valuable opportunity to highlight real-world impacts on home health care delivery.

How to Participate

• Attend the Listening Session: Join CMS to provide live feedback during the listening session specifically for post-acute care and long-term care providers:

December 19, 2024
1:00-2:00 PM ET
Register

• Submit Comments: Public comments are open from November 25 to December 30, 2024. Click here to comment using the online form or upload comments.
• Send Feedback to HCAF: To help inform our association’s comments, we invite members to provide their input. Please share your thoughts on the measures affecting home health agencies via and how these changes might impact your operations and patient outcomes. Please send your comments to info@homecarefla.org with the subject line: “2024 MUC List Public Comment Period.”

For assistance or more information, please contact us at (850) 222-8967 or info@homecarefla.org. Thank you for your engagement in this important process!