Home Health & Hospice Week

If you'd like to learn more about Review and Correct Reports for Home Health Agencies, tune in to a March 6 webinar on the topic by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. A link to register for the session is at www.cms.gov/Medicare/Quality-Initiatives-Patient-Assessment-Instruments/HomeHealthQualityInits/Home-Health-Quality-Reporting-Training.html.

But in the meantime, be aware of one error in the current version of the report.

The problem: "The denominator counts for the Percent of Residents or Patients with Pressure Ulcers That Are New or Worsened (NQF #0678) on the home health Review and Correct reports are incorrect," CMS says in a message to providers. "They do not include episodes where M1313 was coded as a valid skip, when the response to M1306 was '0' (No). The numerator counts on these reports were calculated correctly."

That means "HHAs can expect to see much lower rates for the measure relative to the values on their Review and Correct reports to date," CMS explains.

The solution: However, "the forthcoming confidential feedback reports for this measure (the HH on-demand Risk Adjusted Outcome Reports), as well as public reporting on Home Health Compare starting in 2019, will both correctly incorporate episodes with valid skips in the denominator." The reports going forward will also be fixed.