Home Health & Hospice Week

QIO activities regarding care transitions may occur sooner. Home health agencies are going to have to wait a little longer for details about the Quality Improvement Organizations' upcoming Home Health Quality Campaign. After HHAs complained about being left off the QIOs' 9th Statement of Work, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently announced it would authorize a new home care-focused campaign (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XVII, No. 29, p. 231). CMS doesn't mention the campaign in its summary of the SOW at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/QualityImprovementOrgs/downloads/9thSOWAnnouncement080508.pdf. The SOW does, however, refer to the care transitions project that will run in 14 states and "promote seamless transitions across settings" in-cluding home care. CMS won't issue the campaign's lead contract until about January, so don't expect details until then, CMS' Debbie Turkay said in the Aug. 13 Open Door Forum for home care providers. "Phase two of the home health quality initiative is really still kind of in action," Turkay told listeners. "Stay tuned." In the meantime, CMS urges agencies to continue the quality improvement work they began under the now-wrapped first campaign, she added. • The mainstream press is paying attention to CMS' recently announced cuts to hospice payment rates via wage index. CMS issued a rule July 31 reducing Medicare's hospice payment rates by nearly 5 percent over three years (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XVII, No. 28, p. 218). "Hospice does not have the finances that they had before to provide the services," said Greg Sangster, administrator of Aspen Hospice of Mon-tana in Stevensville, MT, to the Ravalli Republic newspaper. "The hospice is left with a decision to cut back on the services they provide or continue to provide them and try to find some creative way to continue." "That's going to be very difficult for small hospices in rural America," Sangster added. Patients who can't get access to hospice will wind up in costly hospital stays, he also said. The newspaper ran the article, which urges readers to contact their congressional representatives to stop the cuts, after Aspen Hospice submitted a letter about the problem. • Gas prices continue to tick down, much to the relief of home care workers. The federal Energy Information Association reports a national average gas price of $3.74 per gallon, down nearly 7 cents from the previous week. Gasbuddy.com puts the national average at $3.71, with the cheapest gas in Missouri ($3.44 per gallon) and the most expensive in Hawaii ($4.56). But the national average is still up about 96 cents compared to a year ago, the EIA notes. That high price continues to place a heavy burden on visiting home care staff. Genesis VNA and Hospice in Davenport, IA has increased the mileage rate [...]