Home Health & Hospice Week

Make sure your contact information is correct to reap the benefits.

If they're not there already, your patient outcomes soon will be up on the Home Health Compare Web site for all to see as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services pushes ahead with national rollout of the home health quality initiative. Home health agencies in eight states already have their HHQI information posted on the site (www.medicare.gov/HHCompare/Home.asp), which is receiving 500 to 800 hits per day. And the site lists agency contact information for all states. In a recent week, the site saw 5,000 visitors, CMS said in the July 2 Home Health Open Door Forum. That's a lot of eyeballs scouring your information, and potentially looking for a provider. To capture the possible referrals generated from the site, you should make sure your contact information on it is correct. Because of the long development process, the last day to make changes to contact information before the national rollout was July 8, CMS said in the forum. Changes submitted after that date will be incorporated after the nationwide launch. Don't expect Home Health Compare to be the same as the pilot project, CMS said. The agency is incorporating lessons learned from the pilot and is redesigning the site to be more user-friendly. CMS also is refining the search engine to make sure appropriate agencies come up in a search by zip code. And a Spanish version of the site is tentatively scheduled for launch next February. Currently, the site's main page directs Spanish-speaking users to obtain the information by calling 1-800-MEDICARE. CMS plans to give an overview of the national project and related issues in an October satellite broadcast to HHAs, the official said. Editor's Note: Sign up for the forum at www.cms.gov/opendoor/homehealth%2Dhospice.asp.