Now Available: Telehealth Indicator for Doctors and Clinicians on Care Compare

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) added a new telehealth indicator on clinician profile pages on Medicare Care Compare and in the Provider Data Catalog (PDC). The new indicator helps beneficiaries and caregivers more easily find clinicians who provide telehealth services.

Telemedicine services expanded in response to the COVID-19 public health emergency to improve patients’ access to care. Last year, CMS reported a 30-fold increase in telehealth services, with more than half of Medicare beneficiaries utilizing them between March 1, 2020 and February 28, 2021. The telehealth indicator is the latest example of CMS’s efforts to ensure Care Compare provides beneficiaries and caregivers meaningful information about services they value as they search for clinicians.

For more information, access the Telehealth Indicator on Medicare Care Compare fact sheet.

If you have any questions about the telehealth indicator or public reporting for doctors and clinicians on Care Compare, contact the QPP Service Center at 1-866-288-8292 (Monday-Friday 8 a.m. - 8 p.m. ET) or by e-mail at [email protected]. To receive assistance more quickly, consider calling during non-peak hours (before 10 a.m. and after 2 p.m. ET). Customers who are hard of hearing can dial 711 to be connected to a TRS Communications Assistant.  

Webinar: The Home Health Value-Based Purchasing First Performance Year

It’s officially 2023 and that means the Home Health Value-Based Purchasing (HHVBP) first performance year is here. Starting now, your home health organization will be measured based on how well you perform or improve in the following key areas:

• Home health CAHPS (HHCAHPS) – 30%
• Claims-based measures (60-day hospitalization and emergency department use) – 35%
• OASIS-based measures (self-care, mobility, discharged to community, etc.) – 35%

Agencies that do not perform well in these three areas could see a negative payment adjustment of as much as -5% in 2025.  

When adding the OASIS-based measure Discharged to Community to the claims-based measures for reducing 60-day Hospitalization rates and Emergency Department Use, we see that over 40% of an agency’s measurements relate to keeping patients out of the hospital and in the community. Yet this can be one of the hardest metrics to improve. 

Insights from the National Healthcare at Home Best Practice Study show us that using an interdisciplinary team model versus a distinct clinical team structure is one way to reduce hospitalization rates for agencies.

But that’s only one of over 20 study insights we collected to help agencies improve their HHVBP outcomes. To review them all, click here to access a complimentary recording of our webinar, Insights from the Healthcare at Home National Best Practices and Future Insights Study. Described as “the best webinar I’ve ever attended,” this is truly a session you won’t want to miss. 

Access the Webinar

What Home-Based Care Leaders Should Know About The $1.66 Trillion Spending Bill

Home Heath Care News | By Patrick Filbin

The proposed $1.66 trillion omnibus government funding bill – which is expected to pass through the U.S. House and Senate this week – includes multiple home-based care provisions of importance.
 
Among those is new home health payment transparency language, an extension of the rural add-on, a separate extension of the Money Follows the Person program and more.
 
While home health and home care stakeholders will be pleased with some of what’s included in the omnibus spending bill, they will likely be at least partially disappointed that Congress did not postpone the 3.925% rate cut that was part of the home health final rule for 2023.
Providers had been pushing for that delay once the final rule was published. However, the payment rule will move forward as published.
 
One of the biggest wins for the home care industry is the absence of the 4% Medicare cuts across the board for 2023 and 2024, also known as the PAYGO reductions.
 
In March 2021, Congress passed the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA), a $1.9 trillion economic recovery package that included — among other things — a 10% increase to Federal Medicaid Assistance Percentage (FMAP) for home- and community-based services.
 
It also included $8.5 billion in Provider Relief Fund money for rural health care providers, including home health and hospice agencies.
 
That relief funding has to be paid via the Senate by law – Pay-As-You-Go, or PAYGO. Legislation can’t result in an increase to the federal budget deficit without an offset from increased revenue in one place or reduced spending in another.
 
In other words, the federal budget must be neutral.
 
Because of that, many in the home-based care world feared that providers would be called on to help offset ARPA’s spending. But that will not be the case.

Read Full Article

Government Funding Bill Extends Telehealth Flexibilities, Averts Cap Cut [Hospice]

NHPCO NewsBrief

On Tuesday, December 20, Congress released the text of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023, an omnibus funding package that will fund the government through Fiscal Year 2023. The legislation contains measures that will affect hospices positively and negatively. We expect the legislation to pass and be signed into law later this week.

Key developments include:

• Telehealth extension: The legislation extends hospice telehealth flexibilities through the end of 2024, which were initially enacted as part of the CARES Act in 2020. This allows hospice patients and providers to continue to use telehealth for low touch, face-to-face visits prior to recertification for the hospice benefit. Patients will also be able to continue to participate in telehealth visits from home. 

• Continued slowdown of hospice caps: The legislation extends the cap calculation methodology implemented by the Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation (IMPACT) Act of 2014. For years that measure has slowed the growth of the hospice aggregate cap, reducing the total amount a hospice can be reimbursed for care provided to patients, as compared to the rates set prior to the IMPACT Act. The FY23 omnibus extends that IMPACT Act aggregate cap methodology by another year to 2032, meaning that for the next decade, many hospices will have to do more with less to continue providing patient care.

• Cap cut avoided: Beyond extension of the IMPACT Act methodology, there was some consideration to MedPAC’s recommendation to outright decrease the hospice aggregate cap by 20 percent. That cut was averted, protecting hospice patients and providers.

• Expanded definition of the IDT: The legislation will allow hospices, starting in 2024, to use marriage and family therapists (MFTs) and mental health counselors (MHCs) as part of the hospice interdisciplinary team.

• Focus on grief and bereavement: The bill designates $1,000,000 for assessing the feasibility of developing consensus-based quality standards for high-quality bereavement and grief care. It also directs the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) to collaborate with other health officials to evaluate and report on the scope of need for high-quality bereavement and grief services, including a focus on the role of hospices in community services.

Read the press release or view our full member alert.