Please mark your calendars for the following FREE HHQI January events. 

Take advantage of these free evidence-based resources and events.  For more information, please contact the Home Health Quality Improvement (HHQI) team at HHQI@qualityinsights.org. 

PEPPER summarizes Medicare claims data statistics for one provider in targeted areas that may be at risk for improper Medicare payments.  The reports compare the provider’s Medicare claims data statistics with aggregate Medicare data for the nation, Medicare Administrative Contractor jurisdiction and state.  PEPPER is an educational tool that is intended to help providers assess their risk for improper Medicare payments.

The second round of Quality of Patient Care Star Ratings are scheduled to be published on the Home Health Compare web site on October 8, 2015.   A set of Provider Preview Reports showing the calculation of the second round of star ratings were distributed to providers’ CASPER shared folders on June 30.  CMS has since learned that there was a transposition error in the data used to generate those reports, and they are being pulled from the CASPER folders. Providers who have already downloaded and circulated these reports are urged to discard all copies.  They can be recognized by the file name that ends: “Star2_prvw_for_Oct2015.”

Replacement reports are scheduled to be distributed to providers’ CASPER shared folders by Friday, July 10. They will be available there for 120 days, or until November 6, 2015.  Users can recognize the revised reports by the file name that ends: “Star2REV_prvw_for_Oct2015.” The revised version also includes the word “REVISED” in the initial title, and in the heading on the “scorecard” page.

Providers can request CMS review of their star ratings if they can provide documentation that errors or omissions in the data they have submitted to CMS have impacted their final star rating.  The instructions for submitting such requests are included on Page 3 of the preview report. Given the need to revise the preview reports, the deadline for submitting these requests is being extended to July 24, 2015.

Any questions about these reports can be directed to: HomeHealthQualityQuestions@cms.hhs.gov

Additional information about the home health Quality of Patient Care Star Ratings is available at: https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Quality-Initiatives-Patient-Assessment-Instruments/HomeHealthQualityInits/HHQIHomeHealthStarRatings.html .