Courtesy of the National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC)

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) held the Home Health, Hospice & Durable Medical Equipment (DME) Open Door Forum (ODF) on Wednesday, September 21, 2022. The following recap is applicable to home health providers.

Home Health Value-Based Purchasing Model (HHVBP)

The HHVBP Model is scheduled to begin on January 1, 2023. Resources for providers continue to be developed for guidance documents and frequently asked questions. More information can be found on the Expanded HHVBP website here.

On August 25, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) presented an overview of the performance feedback reports (Interim and Annual Performance Reports). Due to technical difficulties experienced by some of the registrants, an encore of the presentation is scheduled for Tuesday, October 11, 2022, at 2:00 PM ET. Click here to register. Participants are encouraged to download the sample performance reports prior to the presentation, which can be found here.

Home Health Quality Reporting Program (HH QRP)

CMS officials reminded providers of the Care Compare October 2022 refresh. The reports will include only OASIS (Outcome and Assessment Information Set) and Home Health Care Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HHCAHPS) measures, and none of the claims-based measures. The review reports for the October refresh were made available in iQIES (Internet Quality Improvement and Evaluation System) in July.

Preview reports for the annual quality-only assessment metric will be available on October 1 and include OASIS assessments completed between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2022.

CMS conducted a virtual training session for the OASIS-E earlier this month. For more information, visit the OASIS Training webpage.

Home Health Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HHCAHPS) 

Home health providers' HHCAHPS preview reports were made available on September 22 for surveys collected from April 2021 through March 2022. To access your agency’s HHCAHPS report, log into the secure HHCAHPS portal. Questions about the survey reports should be directed to the HHCAHPS contractor via email to HHCAHPS@rti.org or by calling (866) 354-0985.

On October 3, 2022, The HHCAHPs quarterly newsletter will be available and include information on the revised HHCAHPS survey cover letter.

The next quarterly submission deadline for the HHCAHPs is October 20, 2022, Providers are reminded that they are responsible for ensuring the data has been submitted in a timely fashion.