Home Health & Hospice Week

Have an opinion on whether CMS should use social risk factors to adjust its hospice quality measure scores? Now’s the time to speak up. “We understand that social risk factors such as income, education, race and ethnicity, employment, disability, community resources, and social support … play a major role in health,” CMS says in its 2018 proposed rule on hospice payment published in the May 3 Federal Register. Some of those factors “are also sometimes referred to as socioeconomic status (SES) factors or socio-demographic status (SDS) factors,” the rule adds.

CMS is considering “analyses and recommendations” from bodies such as the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation and the National Quality Forum on this topic, but it wants input from stakeholders also, it stresses in the rule.

Downside: “We are concerned about holding providers to different standards for the outcomes of their patients with social risk factors because we do not want to mask potential disparities or minimize incentives to improve the outcomes for disadvantaged populations,” CMS worries.

CMS also wants feedback on which specific social risk factors to use, and how to operationalize the process.

“We are committed to ensuring that … beneficiaries have access to and receive excellent care, and that the quality of care furnished by providers and suppliers is assessed fairly in our programs,” CMS pledges.

Instructions for commenting by June 26 are in the rule at www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2017-05-03/pdf/2017-08563.pdf.