Tag: Home Health Care

New Claims-based Measures for Hospitalization and ED Use

As reported in the Final Rule for CY 2013, there are significant changes in how the home health hospitalization rates are calculated. On January 17, 2013, the hospitalization measures based on these new calculations were posted on Home Health Compare.  Specifically, the Acute Care Hospitalization (ACH) and Emergency Department (ED) Use Without Hospitalization are now based on Medicare claims-based data rather than on OASIS-based data.

Key points to note:

  • Claims-based measure is based on the Start of Care (SOC) date instead of the transfer/discharge date.
  • Numerator:  the number of home health stays for patients who have a Medicare claim for an admission to an acute care hospital or for an emergency department visit in the 60 days following the start of the home health stay.
  • Exclusions from the Measure Numerator
    • Planned hospitalizations are excluded from the acute care hospitalization claims-based measure numerator.
  • Observation stays that begin in a hospital emergency department but do not result in an inpatient stay within the 60 days after the start of home health care are counted in the ED Use without Hospitalization measure.
  • Observation stays that result in an inpatient stay within the 60 days after the start of home health care are counted in the Acute Care Hospitalization measure even if the patient is discharged from the home health agency.
  • Denominator:  the number of home health stays that began during the reporting period.
  • Exclusions from the Measure Denominator
    •  Home health stays for patients who are not continuously enrolled in fee-for-service Medicare during the 60 days following the start of home health stay. (Medicare lacks full information about the patients utilization of health care services and cannot determine if care was sought in an ED during the numerator window,  60 days time period)
    • LUPAs are excluded from claims-based measure
    • Home health stays in which the patient receives service from multiple agencies during the first 60 days are excluded from the denominator.
    • Home health stays for patients who are not continuously enrolled in fee-for-service Medicare for six months prior to the start of the home health stay. (This is excluded because Medicare lacks information about the patient’s health status that is needed for risk adjustment)
  • There is significant difference in the claims-data and the OASIS-data for the ACH measures so they are not comparable. To continue to track your ACH rate by OASIS-based data, this data will continue to be reported on the CASPER Reporting System.

For Specifications for Home Health Claims-Based Utilization Measures, Click Here

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org

Home Health and Hospice Education Webinars for 1st Quarter 2013.

The Medicare Administrative Contractor for Massachusetts, NHIC, Corp. has posted upcoming Home Health and Hospice Education Webinars for January-March 2013.  Providers are encouraged to participate in these educational sessions.

More information on registration, materials, and training assessments are provided on the Education Programs Information section for NHIC website. Note: Registration is required for all programs.

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org.

Multimedia Home Care Ad Campiagn in Full Swing

The Home Care Alliance is engaged in its own campaign this fall.

The inaugural HCA Multimedia Campaign is in full swing this fall thanks to a partnership between the Alliance and WGBH where member home care agencies have the opportunity to “sponsor”  public radio programming. These sponsorships are mentioned on 89.7 WGBH (Boston Public Radio) as well as 99.5 Classical New England and direct listeners to a custom webpage with the participating member agencies.

Also rotating with other sponsors on the WGBH and Classical New England websites is a graphic that also directs people to the HCA’s custom webpage.

The sponsorships play continuously through the first week of November for participating member agencies and run on various times through the day.

These sponsorships promote the home health or home care agency, but also raise the profile of home care and generate interest in the industry at large. The listeners of these stations are overwhelmingly the demographic of people that are interested in learning more about or obtaining home care.

To hear a couple of the sample sponsorships, see the audio clips below:

CMS Releases Proposed PPS rates for 2013

CMS on Friday released an advance copy of the proposed regulation for changes to the home health PPS rates for calendar year 2013.

Brief highlights:

• The proposal increases the national base episodic rate by 0.16%, from $2,138.52 to $2,141.95.  (calculated using a 2.5 percent inflation update, a 1 point reduction mandated by the health care reform law, and a 1.32 percent case mix creep adjustment.)

• The portion of the rate adjusted by the wage index is increased from .77082 to .78535

• The county wage index is available here (click on the “download” at the bottom of the page).:

Here are changes for MA counties:

Current                2013

Barnstable                        1.2838                   1.2872
Boston                              1.2283                   1.2394
Middlesex                         1.1210                   1.1285
Essex                               1.0698                   1.0575
erkshire                            1.0616                   1.0745
Bristol                               1.0639                   1.0718
Springfield                        1.0247                   1.0390
Worcester                         1.1076                   1.1230
Dukes/Nantucket              1.3962                   1.3570

The proposed rule also:

  • allows certain non-physician practitioners in inpatient settings to conduct the required Face-to-face encounter;
  • increases flexibility in complying with the therapy reassessment requirements;
  • establishes hospice quality reporting requirements to begin in 2014, including various proposed measures to report;
  • creates an Informal Dispute Resolution process that agencies can use to dispute survey deficiencies;
  • establishes a range of “Intermediate Sanctions” for non-compliance with the Medicare Conditions of Participation, including civil money penalties, suspension of payment for new admissions, and temporary management.

The Alliance will conduct a thorough analysis of the proposed rule and prepare comments.  Watch for additional details in the next few weeks.

Comments are due by Sept. 4.

FYI: “Home Health Prospective Payment System” Fact Sheet Revised

The Medicare Learning Network has recently released the revised “Home Health Prospective Payment System” fact sheet and is now available in downloadable format. It includes the following information: background, consolidated billing requirements, criteria that must be met to qualify for home health services, coverage of home health services, elements of the HH PPS, updates to the HH PPS, and healthcare quality. This can be used as a handy tool for new employees to home health care!

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org.