In the CY 2018 Home Health Proposed Rule, CMS is dramatically changing the scoring methodology for the pilot program known as the Home Health Value-based Purchasing Program (HHVBP). What is striking to me is that these changes are being made during the fourth year of the five-year program, where up to 7% of Medicare revenues are at risk.

With the second performance year (CY 2017) of HHVBP over, I wanted to see how the year over year measure outcomes changed across our SHP national database. Comparing the same agencies year over year it appears both HHVBP states and Non-VBP states improved about the same on their average outcomes and process measure scores with little change in the HHCAHPS scores. Notice that with a few exceptions, VBP agencies had better outcomes than their non-VBP state agency peers. I expect CMS has noticed that too. In deciding what scores you want to target, it is best to know what percentile rank you want to realistically achieve.

Republished with permission from Decision Health. Article originally published on Home Health Line October 16, 2016. Whether they’re discussing QAPI, 5-star ratings or rehospitalization rates in general, more and more agencies are showcasing their quality of care when they market to referral sources, a new HHL survey shows.

CMS issued the Final CY 2017 Home Health PPS Rate Update in the Federal Register on November 3rd. All of the proposals to update the VBP program were finalized with no changes regardless of stakeholder comments, except for one...

Value-Based Purchasing: CMS says “No” to 4 new measures.

On December 31st, CMS released their first Q&A on the CMS website, and in doing so provided some key information.

Earlier this month CMS provided many updates with the release of the 2016 final rule and Value-Based Purchasing program. However, home health agencies are still waiting for vital information they need to determine their agency’s overall quality.

It’s going to be a busy month. The Home Health Proposed Rule was just issued and the new Home Health Compare measures for 30-day readmissions and Quality of Patient Care star ratings, along with the PEPPER reports are all scheduled to be released.

The Home Health Proposed Rule was posted by CMS on the Federal Register July 10th and it was full of surprises, especially in light of the much anticipated proposal on Value Based Purchasing (VBP).

Republished with permission from Decision Health. Article originally published on Home Health Line January 11, 2016. The list of quality measures for home health CMS may ultimately use to help determine payments to agencies just grew six measures longer.