Home Health & Hospice Week

Keep your Hospice Item Set data collection rules straight before surveyors hit your doorstep.

Question: “Are we going to be allowed to extract information to complete the HIS based on care processes performed and documented during a telehealth encounter instead of from an in-person visit?” a provider asks the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in a recent question-and-answer pair.

Answer: “For HIS items data collection purposes (excluding section O related to Hospice Visits When Death is Imminent), hospices may use information gathered via telecommunication technology for routine home care patient visits,” CMS says. “Responses to items on the HIS can be selected by the assessing clinician as part of the patient visit/assessment, including telehealth encounters, or can be based on information documented in the clinical record and abstracted on or before the completion deadline.”

In the other Q&A, CMS points out that “telecommu­nications are not part of the definition of a visit for hospices providing care under the Hospice Visits When Death is Imminent Measure Pair. Therefore, telehealth visits cannot be included in section O of the Hospice Item Set (HIS).”

See more detail in the Q&A set in the Hospice Quality Reporting Program Quarterly Updates for April-September 2020 at www.cms.gov/files/document/hqrp-2020-quarter-23-newsletterjuly-2020.pdf, Section 8.