Home Health & Hospice Week

Plus: Here’s why you’ve been waiting so long on the free Pricer software.

Wondering where you are in your OASIS submission stats? Next month you can find out with new reports available in CASPER.

Reminder: In the 2015 home health prospective payment system final rule, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services finalized a requirement for home health agencies to hit a 70 percent benchmark for OASIS submission in the July 2015-to-June 2016 time period. Agencies that fail to meet the “Quality Assessment Only” standard will face a 2 percent pay reduction in 2017. The benchmark moves up to 80 percent for the year starting July 2016, and 90 percent for the year starting in July 2017.

CMS offered a report telling you your OASIS stats for the July 2013-to-June 2014 period last year (see Eli’s HCW, Vol. XXIV, No. 25). Now you’ll be able to access a report for the January 2015-to-December 2015 time period, starting in mid-April, announced CMS’s Theresa White in the March 9 Home Health Open Door Forum.

Your OASIS stats in the new report won’t be used for a payment adjustment yet, but should show you where improvement is needed, White said. CMS will make reports available quarterly from now on, she added.

Other HHA topics covered in the forum include:

• Home Health PC Pricer. Usually, CMS makes the updated PC Pricer available to HHAs in January, noted CMS’s Wil Gehne in the forum. But the agency is modernizing the program “to have a more contemporary user-friendly interface,” Gehne told attendees. “When it is available the software will be new and improved, but unfortunately I don’t have a release date for it yet. Please know that we’re working hard to get the Home Health PC Pricer posted, and I thank you for your patience.”

Gehne also reviewed CR 9474, which gives HHAs a new condition code to use when they are legitimately billing with no skilled service on the claim (see Eli’s HCW, Vol. XXV, No. 8).

• CAHPS. For agencies that have never participated in the Home Health CAHPS program, now is the perfect time to start. The CAHPS reporting year starts in April, noted CMS’s Lori Teichman in the forum. Participating in the patient survey program with one of the 30 or so vendors will prevent you from receiving a 2 percent payment reduction, she reminded participants.

Form due: HHAs who want to qualify for a CAHPS exemption because they serve fewer than 60 survey-eligible patients annually must file the exemption request form by March 31, Teichman added.

In addition to the payment ramifications, CAHPS data is also displayed on Home Health Compare, Teichman pointed out. CAHPS star ratings began displaying Jan. 28 for agencies with at least 40 surveys completed annually, she noted.

CMS still reports CAHPS data for HHAs with fewer than 40 surveys, but not as a star rating, she explained.