Home Health & Hospice Week

In addition to all the other notices you give home care patients, you may soon be giving them information about how to complain about you.

A new Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services proposal "would require most Medicare participating providers and suppliers to give Medicare beneficiaries written notice about their right to contact a Medicare Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) with concerns about the quality of care they receive under the Medicare program," the agency says in a release.

Currently, only hospital inpatients are given this type of information about contacting a QIO. But if the new proposal is finalized, a long list of provider types, including home health agencies and hospices, would have to inform beneficiaries about how to complain to a QIO.

"By requiring providers and suppliers to furnish QIO contact information to all beneficiaries, we are protecting beneficiaries' rights to bring their worries about quality of care to a third party for review," CMS Administrator Donald Berwick says in the release. QIOs investigate complaints, gather facts from all parties involved, and recommend action to help providers and suppliers improve quality of care.

The requirement may seem like overkill for paperwork-heavy home care patients, but especially for hospice ones. In addition to the QIO notice, "CMS is proposing to include in hospice patient's rights requirements at § 418.52 that the hospice provide patients with the mailing address, electronic mail address, and telephone number of the state survey agency in the event they wish to report a grievance," notes the National Association for Home Care & Hospice. That would be in addition to the QIO contact information.

CMS is accepting comments on the proposed rule through April 3. The rule is in the Feb. 2 Federal Register at http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2011/pdf/2011-2275.pdf.