Home Health & Hospice Week

Plus: There’s no time like the present to start reporting CAHPS data.

Big changes are afoot for home health agencies, but providers have questions about when exactly those changes will hit.

Reminder: A little over a month ago, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced a “pause” for “at least 30 days” for the preclaim review program in Illinois, and proposed a delay to the new Home Health Conditions of Participation implementation date from July to January (see Eli’s HCW, Vol. XXVI, No. 14).

But providers wondering what exactly is going on with both changes didn’t get any hoped-for answers in the May 3 Home Health Open Door Forum. One HHA caller asked about the status of PCR, but a CMS official responded that the agency had no update.

Another HHA participant asked when the proposed CoPs delay will be made final. HHAs will have to be ready by July if CMS doesn’t go ahead with the postponement, the caller noted. That means agencies would have to be furiously preparing now. CMS didn’t have staff on the call to address that issue, the CMS staffer said.

Despite its proposed status, “providers should be very confident about the extension,” advises Washington, D.C.-based healthcare attorney Elizabeth Hogue. “There is little doubt that it will be finalized,” Hogue tells Eli.

Consider it practically a done deal. “I don’t know why they would put that notice out and then retract it,” notes attorney Robert Markette Jr. with Hall Render in Indianapolis.

Even with the six-month extension, though, HHAs have a mountain of work to accomplish to get into compliance by January and avoid potentially harsh survey findings and penalties. “Get to work now,” Hogue urges.

Hit The May 25 CAHPS Deadline

Meanwhile, another CMS official noted that now is a great time to jump on the CAHPS bandwagon, if you aren’t already participating in the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems patient satisfaction survey process.

To receive a full payment update for 2019, agencies must report data for April 2017 through March 2018, the CMS representative explained. And because CAHPS survey data must be collected by a third-party vendor, agencies have until May 25 to provide a patient list to their survey vendor.

More time: If an agency is participating in CAHPS for the first time, it would probably qualify for an extension of that deadline to June 14, the source added.

Don’t forget: HHAs that want to start reporting CAHPS data must approve one of the 31 CAHPS vendors, the official told forum attendees. A list of vendors is available at https://homehealthcahps.org.