OASIS Alert

Published on Sat Jan 20, 2007 PDF

Focus on acute care hospitalization intensifies.

The December update to the Home Health Compare publicly-reported outcomes, posted Jan. 11, demonstrates the difficulties agencies have in budging acute care hospitalization rates.

The latest update to Home Health Compare shows improvement in only one measure -- "Patients who get better at getting in and out of bed" increased from 52 percent to 53 percent. Despite the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' intense focus on improving acute care hospitalization during the last year, that outcome remains at 28 percent, the same as  in November 2003. The outcome "Patients who need urgent unplanned medical care" also stayed at the November 2003 rate of 21 percent.

Acute care hospitalization is the percentage of home health episodes in a 12-month period that end with a hospitalization. |

Time frame: This update covers data from December  2005 through November 2006.
  
• The long-awaited prospective payment system update has not been released at press time. CMS initially planned to publish the proposed rule in December 2005 to be effective in January 2007.  Later CMS indicated that it might release the update in November or December 2006, to take effect in January 2008.

The latest Department of Health & Human Services' semiannual agenda, published Dec. 11, notes a new expectation of May 2007 for the proposed rule. A May release would leave insufficient time for the process of public comment, final rule and necessary steps for implementation, the National Association for Home Care & Hospice says in its member newsletter.

• CMS kicked off its Home Health National Quality Campaign Jan. 11. The goal is to reduce unplanned hospitalizations and im-prove quality of care. The campaign will provide agencies with free tools, resources, guidelines, success stories, best practice education materials and data. It will electronically distribute monthly "intervention packages" to registered agencies.

Register at www.homehealthquality.org.

• Never miss the recert five-day window again. Download the eight-page "OASIS Follow Up Assessment Scheduling Calendar" for 2007, at www.qtso.com/download/hha/oasiscal2007.pdf.