Home Health & Hospice Week

Quality:

Brace For New Quality Measures To Come In These Areas

Cognitive function measures are on the horizon.

Home health agencies may have gotten a reprieve on certain IMPACTAct quality measures in this year's 2018 HH PPS final rule, but that's not likely to last long.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is considering the following measures from the IMPACT Act's functional status, cognitive function, and changes in function and cognitive function domain for Home Health Quality Reporting inclusion in future years, it says in the rule:

  • Change in Self-Care Score for Medical Rehabilitation Patients (Application of NQF #2633);
  • Change in Mobility Score for Medical Rehabilitation Patients (Application of NQF #2634);
  • Discharge Self-Care Score for Medical Rehabilitation Patients (Application of NQF #2635); and
  • Discharge Mobility Score for Medical Rehabilitation Patients (Application of NQF #2636).

CMS also notes in its fact sheet on the rule that while it is not finalizing proposals that would have required HHAs to report standardized patient assessment data in the IMPACT Act categories of Cognitive Function and Mental Status; Special Services, Treatments, and Interventions; and Impairments, it "intends to evaluate further how to best identify standardized patient assessment data that satisfies each of these categories, is most appropriate for CMS's intended purposes, and can be reported by HHAs in the least burdensome manner."

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