At their December 14th HH QRP webinar, CMS announced the deletion of the Influenza Immunization Received for Current Flu Season measure from the algorithm in calculating the home health Quality of Patient Care (QoPC) Star ratings. CMS made this after the month-long comment period ended in November 2017. The change will take effect in the April 2018 Home Health Compare (HHC) refresh.

The CY 2018 Home Health Payment System Rate final rule was published last week and CMS announced the news the industry was hoping to read – “We are not finalizing the implementation of the Home Health Groupings Model (HHGM) in this final rule.” Below are a few other highlights from the final rule related to the Home Health Value Based Purchasing (HHVBP) program, Home Health Quality Reporting Program (HHQRP) and the changing HH PPS case-mix weights (CMW).

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.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the new Hospice Compare website in August. The data shows how important it is to track and manage your performance improvement program with real-time scores. With a 9 month delay expected in Hospice Compare data, your scores today will be part of the CMS benchmark through June 2019. Hospices should evaluate their highest and lowest performers for identifying best practices and remedial training accordingly.

The big news in the latest proposed rule for HH PPS was the Home Health Groupings Model (HHGM). Along with the typical recalibration to case-mix payments and case weights, did you see the significant proposals regarding the Home Health Quality Reporting Program (HH QRP)? Almost a third of the 389 pages in the rule were in regard to the HH QRP.

SHP is happy to adopt the new NHIA infusion industry standards to support the data initiative for patient outcome improvement. As a result, we will be replacing our existing proprietary home infusion patient satisfaction survey with the new survey, approved and issued by NHIA, for all our current and future customers. The adoption of the NHIA survey will allow home infusion pharmacies to compare their performance to a standardized national benchmark. This will be a great benefit to home infusion pharmacies as they work with referral sources and payers, and will aid their internal organizational efforts to improve performance.

The Home Health Groupings Model (HHGM), which is the most significant change to the home health prospective payment reimbursement model since its inception, was finally released on Thursday, July 28th as part of the Home Health Payment Proposed Rule for CY 2018, although it is not scheduled to be implemented until CY 2019.

The annual SHPBest recognition program was created to acknowledge home health and hospice providers that consistently provide high quality service. We are pleased to announce the 2016 SHP Best-of-the-Best winners, who have been recognized for achieving the highest overall HHCAHPS patient satisfaction or CAHPS Hospice caregiver satisfaction scores of all eligible SHP clients during the 2016 calendar year.

Brightree LLC, a leading provider of cloud-based software, and Strategic Healthcare Programs (SHP), a leading provider of data analytics and benchmarking to post-acute care providers, have released Integrated Alerting to further enhance the existing interface between two companies.

Strategic Healthcare Programs (SHP) has released a new first-in-class comprehensive Hospice Scorecard Report suite. As hospice providers and their referral sources continue their focus on quality and with the upcoming public reporting of hospice scores, the need for real-time data increases. SHP’s Scorecard suite will enhance hospice customers’ capability to measure, manage and report on quality metrics.

Home Health Care News publishes: How Home Health Can Win the Readmissions Numbers Game, using SHP's data & insights gained from recent webinar presented by SHP.

2017 will be an important year for the Hospice Quality Reporting Program (HQRP). CMS plans to publicly share quality scores on a Hospice Compare website starting this year. On January 18th, CMS provided a full day of training to providers in Baltimore to share information on HQRP. Along with this on-site presentation, CMS live-streamed the event online to allow as many hospices as possible to participate. Here are some of the highlights...

On January 18th, CMS presented a slideshow through their Medicare Learnings Network on a possible new payment refinement to home health care reimbursement called the Home Health Groupings Model (HHGM). This was the second call in six months where Abt Associates, CMS’ contractor, shared the HHGM background in addition to the 178 page technical report they issued in November 2016. This sure seems to be picking up speed.

After seeing promising preliminary results, our customer Amedisys is expanding a pilot program that aims to lower overall costs through fewer readmissions. The outcomes from the pilot and future results from the program will be evaluated against Strategic Healthcare Programs' (SHP) benchmark data on 3 metrics: hospital readmission rates, functional status of the patient and shortness of breath.