Home Health & Hospice Week

A new year of data is now available in the Medicare Post-Acute Care & Hospice by Provider and Service dataset.

The file, formerly called the Medicare Post-Acute Care and Hospice Provider Utilization and Payment Public Use Files (PAC PUF), now includes data through 2019, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services notes on its webpage. The dataset “includes information on demographic and clinical characteristics of beneficiaries served, professional and paraprofessional service utilization, submitted charges, and payments at the provider, state, and national levels,” plus a report on Home Health Resource Group levels for home health agencies, CMS notes.

Pro: “The PAC PUF provides a wealth of payment and utilization information about home health, hospice and other Medicare services,” the National Association for Home Care & Hospice notes. NAHC “recommends that all home health and hospice providers review their own data and that of their peers.”

Con: But “the dataset also has a number of limitations,” NAHC cautions. The information isn’t risk-adjusted and “does not indicate the quality of care provided by individual providers; it only contains cost and utilization information.”

The file is at https://data.cms.gov/provider-summary-by-type-of-service/medicare-post-acute-care-hospice/medicare-post-acute-care-hospice-by-provider-and-service.