This post is just a reminder to all home health care agencies regarding the CMS initiative around the Home Health CAHPS® (pronounced “CAPS”) survey upcoming in the next few months.  Research & Marketing Strategies (RMS) is one of only two approved HH-CAHPS® vendors in NY.  It is also one of the few vendors who offer telephone surveying capabilities for HH-CAHPS® and HCAHPS® (Hospital CAHPS).  This is why our Healthcare Division has HCAHPS® clients all across the country.

Why should you choose RMS to be your vendor? Click Here.

What is the HH-CAHPS® survey? The Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS®) Home Health Care Survey (Home Health Care CAHPS® Survey) is designed to measure the experiences of people receiving home health care from Medicare-certified home health agencies.  The Home Health Care CAHPS® Survey will be conducted for home health agencies by approved Home Health Care CAHPS® Survey vendors. The survey goals are:

  • To produce comparable data on the patient’s perspective that allows objective and meaningful comparisons between home health agencies on domains that are important to consumers;
  • Public reporting of survey results will create incentives for agencies to improve their quality of care; and
  • Public reporting will enhance public accountability in health care by increasing the transparency of the quality of care provided in return for public investment.

What are the requirements? The HH-CAHPS® requirements are as follows:

  • HH-CAHPS® data collection starts in the third quarter of 2010 in the form of a practice “dry run” of the survey, and this data will not be publicly reported on HH Compare; and
  • HHAs must conduct a dry run for at least one of the months in third quarter 2010, and then continuously collect HH-CAHPS® data every month beginning in October 2010.

Is my agency exempt? In the Final Rule CY 2010, CMS stated that there would be exemptions for newly Medicare-certified HHAs, and also for HHAs with less than 60 eligible patients in an annual period that is defined in the rule. HHAs need to provide CMS with the patient counts from April 1, 2009 through March 31, 2010 (if fewer than 60) by June 16, 2010 to be exempt from the 2012 APU reporting requirements. The form on which to report the patient count is an online form that is available on the HH-CAHPS® website from April 1, 2010 through June 16, 2010.

Agencies may choose not to participate in the survey if they believe the costs of participating will exceed the 2% reduction of the full annual payment update you would otherwise receive.

If you have any questions or would like RMS to be your approved HH-CAHPS® vendor, please contact Sandy Baker at 315-635-9802 or by email at SandyB@RMSresults.com.  It’s very easy to have you up and running in no time!

For more information, please visit the Home Health Care CAHPS® Survey website by clicking HERE.