Home Health & Hospice Week

Plus: Hundreds of HHAs still slacking on VBP.

Medicare’s proposed rule for 2017 home health prospective payment holds a number of significant changes ranging from a payment cut to Value-Based Purchasing revisions to an outlier calculation revamp.

Don’t miss your chance to comment on the many changes, including new quality measures (see story, p. 214). The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is taking comments on the rule until Aug. 26, a CMS staffer said in the agency’s July 13 Open Door Forum for home care providers.

You can see the rule and submit your comments online at www.regulations.gov/docket?D=CMS-2016-0111.

Other topics HHA addressed in the forum include:

• VBP. About 600 home health agencies in the nine VBP states have yet to register for the HH VBP Secure Portal, reported a CMS official. CMS will place agencies’ first VBP performance reports in the portal by the end of July, she said.

To register for the portal website, agencies first must register a Primary Point of Contact (PPOC) under the program, the source has said in previous forums. More information about VBP is at https://innovation.cms.gov/initiatives/home-health-valuebased-purchasing-model.

CMS will hold a webinar about the first performance reports on July 28. VBP agencies can find registration details on the VBP Connect website.

• Billing software. Watch for CMS to post its newest PPS grouper software on its website any day, a CMS staffer said. The software will be for the changes that take effect Oct. 1.
• Home Health Compare. Check your CAHPS stats on Home Health Compare to see whether your standing has changed. The site refreshed its CAHPS data July 13, a CMS official noted in the forum.

CAHPS data updates four times a year on the site, she reminded forum attendees.