Home Health & Hospice Week

Plus: Get a look at your new hospitalization quality measure numbers next month.

The countdown to both OASIS-E and Expanded Home Health Value-Based Purchasing is now under 100 days, and home health agencies are kicking preparations into high gear. But they need a little more help from Medicare.

Case in point: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services held a two-day “Home Health OASIS-E Guidance Training Program” event on Sept. 13 and Sept. 14. CMS billed the Zoom conference as “part of a comprehensive strategy to ensure home health providers have access to the educational materials necessary to promote understanding and compliance with changes in reporting requirements associated with the Home Health Quality Reporting Program (QRP).”

One HHA calling into the Sept. 21 Home Health Open Door Forum had rave reviews for the program. “We found [the sessions] very beneficial, we thought the whole platform was very easy to understand,” praised the caller in the question-and-answer portion of the call.

However, the recording of the program would help HHAs today, not weeks from now, the caller emphasized. “We would like to use that as part of our training” for the agency’s own staff, she told CMS officials on the call. At “100 days away from the implementation of OASIS-E, the clock is ticking,” she stressed. “If that helps to speed it along, that would be great,” she added.

A CMS staffer responded that it usually takes 30 to 45 days to get a recording of an educational event posted to the website, which would put it at mid to late October. “Be on the lookout for that,” she advised.

Other home health topics raised in the forum include:

• VBP. VBP implementation on Jan. 1 is likewise looming large. CMS has been steadily issuing educational materials on the new payment model, including an Aug. 25 webinar, “Navigating Performance Feedback Reports: Interim Performance Report (IPR) and Annual Performance Report (APR).”

However, a “technical glitch” kept a number of stakeholders from being able to get on the call, a CMS representative noted in the forum. The recording, slides and transcript from the session are available online, she pointed out. (See those under the “Model Reports” section of the HH VBP webpage at https://innovation.cms.gov/ innovation-models/expanded-home-health-value-based-purchasing-model.)

CMS is going to offer a live re-do of the webinar anyway, however, on Oct. 11, she noted. Providers can register at https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_e5u1sYo1S­dyFs1UqiN6nUw.

• New hospitalization measure. Confusion about the implementation date for the Home Health Within-Stay Potentially Preventable Hospitalization (PPH) claims-based measure persists, but CMS offered some clarification in the forum.

Reminder: The Home Health Quality Reporting Program currently uses Acute Care Hospitalization during the First 60 Days of Home Health (NQF #0171) and Emergency Department Use Without Hospitalization During the First 60 Days of Home Health (NQF #0173), both of which are based on claims data. But CMS will replace them with the PPH measure. Last year’s final rule said that would begin in January 2023, but a table in July’s 2023 proposed rule lists the old ACH and ED measures (see HCW by AAPC, Vol. XXXI, No. 24).

After a caller in the forum asked, a CMS official confirmed that HHAs will get a preview report including the PPH measure data next month — October 2022 — and that the measure will be publicly reported starting in October 2023.

However: The CMS source did not confirm that the ACH and ED measures would be dropped at the same time. Stay tuned for official transmittals with that information, she indicated.

• Care Compare. Quality data on the Home Health Care Compare webpage will be refreshed as scheduled next month, a CMS staffer reminded forum attendees. But remember that CMS will update only the OASIS and CAHPS data-based quality measures, not the claims-based ones, she added. Also, preview reports for the October refresh remain available in agencies’ iQIES folders.
• QAO performance reports. You can see whether you’ll get docked for your quality data submission stats in a new annual

Quality Assessments Only (QAO) report available in iQIES on Oct. 1. The report covers agencies’ submission stats from OASIS assessments conducted from July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2022, and submitted by July 31, a CMS source shared in the forum.