Home Health & Hospice Week

Are you one of the 68% of HHAs that have footnotes for your Care Compare CAHPS data?

If you pushed off thoughts of CAHPS training and paperwork to after the holidays — it’s now time to tackle the topic.

For instance: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will hold its annual Home Health CAHPS training on Jan. 31, CMS’ Beth Simon noted in the agency’s Jan. 10 Home Health Open Door Forum. The training is required for approved vendors, Simon reminded attendees, although anyone who is interested may attend.

Vendors still seeking approval, on the other hand, “must designate a staff member as the HHCAHPS Survey Project Manager. This individual must register for the Introduction to the HHCAHPS Survey training and complete a training certification after the training,” HHCAHPS contractor RTI explains on the HHCAHPS website. The introductory training is self-paced, and slides should become available around Jan. 22, Simon said.

Registration for both types of training, as well as more details on becoming an approved vendor, are at https://homehealthcahps.org/Training/Registration-Form.

Plus: The next quarterly data submission deadline is Jan. 18, Simon highlighted. That will be for data collected in the July-to-September 2023 period.

And the deadline for the exemption for size form is not too far off on March 31. HHAs with fewer than 60 survey-eligible patients from April 2022 to March 2023 qualify for the exemption, which applies to the period from April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024, Simon explained. That affects an agency’s 2025 payment rate.

Resource: Details and the form are at https://homehealthcahps.org/For-HHAs/Participation-Exemption-Request-Form.

And agencies shouldn’t forget to periodically check that their vendor is actually submitting their CAHPS data, Simon urged. CMS recommends checking “at least” quarterly, she noted.

Revisit CAHPS Footnote Issues

In the latest HHCAHPS quarterly newsletter, CMS reviews the sometimes-irritating issue of footnotes on the Care Compare site.

Footnotes generally occur when an agency doesn’t have enough data for a Care Compare figure to be displayed, the newsletter explains. “Footnotes are primarily assigned to agencies with small numbers of completed interviews,” it says.

That actually translates to a good number of home health providers. From quarter 3 of Calendar Year 2022 to quarter 2 of CY 2023, “8,062 of 11,824 (68 percent) HHAs have footnotes,” the newsletter highlights.

While footnotes aren’t necessarily a negative, they “alert consumers to factors that can impact the generalizability of agency data,” the newsletter cautions. “Agencies should work with their vendors to maximize response rates and participation so there are no gaps in data available for public reporting,” it advises.

Care Compare Refresh On Deck

Meanwhile, the public will be able to view updated Care Compare data — both CAHPS and non-CAHPS — this month, Simon confirmed.

Note: Links to the quarterly CAHPS newsletters are at https://homehealthcahps.org/General-Information/CTQR-Newsletters.