Home Health & Hospice Week

Plus: Check your OASIS submission stats before they cost you.

Medicare is picking up steam when it comes to implementing uniform data collection and quality measures across post-acute settings.

Reminder: The IMPACT Act of 2014 requires the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to implement “standardized uniform data elements to be nested within the assessment instruments” for four post-acute providers — home health agencies, skilled nursing facilities, inpatient rehab facilities, and long-term care hospitals, noted CMS’s Staci Payne in the agency’s May 4 Open Door Forum for home care providers.

One of the next changes for HHAs due to the IMPACT Act is the addition of three items to OASIS-C2 — M1028 Active Diagnoses, M1060 Height and Weight, and GG0170c Mobility (see Eli’s HCW, Vol. XXV, No. 1). The new OASIS-C2 form is open for comment until May 31 and will take effect next January, Payne noted in the forum. Expect more IMPACT Act-related changes in the future, experts warn.

CMS urges providers to learn more about the regulation in upcoming educational events. Information for the events is available via links at www.cms.gov/Medicare/Quality-Initiatives-Patient-Assessment-Instruments/Post-Acute-Care-Quality-Initiatives/IMPACT-Act-of-2014/Stakeholder-Engagement-Opportunities-and-Calendars.html.

Other HHA-related information addressed in the forum included:

• Medicaid F2F. The Medicaid face-to-face physician encounter rule finalized in the Feb. 2 Federal Register specifies that Medicaid doesn’t require home health patients to be homebound, or for home care services to be furnished in the home only, CMS’s Alexandra Smilow emphasized in the forum. Those are areas of “misalignment” with the Medicare benefit, she noted.

HHAs welcomed those clarifications in the final rule (see Eli’s HCW, Vol. XXV, No. 11).

• OASIS Submission. Don’t forget to keep tabs on your OASIS submission stats, before they cost you reimbursement. In this reporting period, HHAs must successfully submit an OASIS record for 70 percent of episodes qualifying as a quality episode of care or face a 2 percent payment rate reduction from Medicare in 2017.

A Quality Assessment Only (QAO) report for 2015 is available in your CASPER folder, and you’ll receive interim quarterly reports to help you monitor your status before it’s too late, Payne reminded forum attendees.