Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

Home health agencies, like nursing homes, are now making public reckonings of the quality of the care they provide - and other provider types are in for the same treatment.

HHAs in eight states had their quality data made public May 1, with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services posting agency-specific data on 11 quality measures on the Medicare Web site. CMS a day later followed that move with newspaper advertisements laying out quality data on the HHAs.

The move is part of a larger strategy to make health care providers more accountable for quality of care by making quality data public to consumers. A similar initiative involving nursing homes was launched last year, and CMS expects the HHA project to go national in coming months.

CMS chief Tom Scully notes that his agency plans "to further expand our public education efforts to reach even more health care providers."

The home health data is available on the Web at www.medicare.gov/HHCompare/home.asp.

Lesson Learned: Health care providers across the board should brace themselves for a public accounting of quality measures.