Home Health & Hospice Week

Are you covering these key family/caregiver needs?

Many Hospice Compare details are unclear, but Medicare has specified a few of the measures it has on deck for when the site launches next spring or summer.

For example: “We plan to include … the willingness to recommend question as part of the Hospice CAHPS data reported on Hospice Compare,” the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services specifies in the hospice payment final rule for 2017 published in the Aug. 5 Federal Register.

Now is the time to launch an improvement plan for this measure, urged hospice consultant Charlene Ross with R&C Healthcare Solutions and Hospice Fundamentals in Arizona, in a February 2016 Eli-sponsored audioconference, “Hospice Quality Reporting Program — What can you do now to prepare for the future?”

Take a look at these variables associated with greater overall satisfaction for routine home care and assess whether you are providing them, Ross offered:

• Being kept informed about patient’s condition;
• Being provided clear/consistent information;
• Perception patients were provided with adequate treatment for anxiety;
• Right amount of information about the medicines used to manage pain;
• Right amount of emotional support provided to caregiver prior to patient’s death.

Failing to provide these services to family and caregivers will result in lower recommendation scores.

Note: Purchase a recording or transcript of Ross’s audioconference, which offers specific strategies for improving multiple CAHPS measure scores, at www.audioeducator.com/hospice/hospice-quality-reportingprogram-02-09-2016.html.