Home Health & Hospice Week

Tests began this summer.

A new demonstration is pitting home care's effectiveness and cost against other post-acute providers.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is moving forward with its $6 million Post Acute Care Payment Reform Demonstration (PAC-PRD), mandated by the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. The project is scheduled to continue through 2009 in an attempt to understand the costs and outcomes for similar diagnoses across different post-acute care settings.

The PAC-PRD demonstration results "may influence how Medicare pays for care across PAC settings and how patient assessments occur at hospital discharge and through subsequent PAC settings," CMS said in its invitation to the July 26 Special Open Door Forum on the project.

Details: The demonstration will use a uniform patient assessment instrument (the CARE tool) that will "measure outcomes in physical and medical treatments while controlling for factors that affect outcomes, such as cognitive impairments and social and environmental factors," reports RTI International, the contractor CMS is using for the project.

The draft tool is 26 pages long, laments consultant Judy Adams with Charlotte, NC-based Larson-Allen. But providers must answer only sections related to their services.

More paperwork: The CARE tool is "very comprehensive and will be major burden for home health providers, especially when combined with OASIS on admission and discharge," Adams tells Eli.

Comments on this form are due by Sept. 25, Adams notes. The form is at www.cms.hhs.gov/Paperwork ReductionActof1995/PRAL/list.asp. Be Involved In Test Select home health agencies in Chicago began testing the tool this summer, according to RTI. Chicago area acute care hospitals, long term care hospitals, intermediate rehab facilities and skilled nursing facilities also tested the tool, which will be refined for a second phase scheduled to begin in January 2008.

To participate: During Phase II, 10 market areas will collect data using the CARE tool and cost and resource use also will be collected, RTI says. Providers wishing to participate in the 2008 demonstration can send an email to pat-comments@rti.org.