Home Health & Hospice Week

Process measures also feature in seven areas for quality reporting development.

These quality measures may be coming to you in the near future, thanks to the IMPACT Act. The

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services listed these seven “future setting-specific measure constructs under consideration” in the 2016 HH PPS proposed rule:

• Falls risk composite process measure.
• Nutrition assessment composite measure.
• Improvement in Dyspnea in Patients with a Primary Diagnosis of Congestive Heart Failure (CHF), Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), and/or Asthma.
• Improvement in Patient-Reported Interference due to Pain.
• Improvement in Patient-Reported Pain Intensity.
• Improvement in Patient-Reported Fatigue.
• Stabilization in 3 or more Activities of Daily Living (ADLs).

The Visiting Nurse Associations of America is “particularly encouraged to see CMS’ focus on stabilization in activities of daily living as a concept area for measure development,” the trade group said in its comment letter.

Note: More details about the potential future measures are in Table 23 of the rule at www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2015-07-10/pdf/2015-16790.pdf.