In the News:  Home Health Demonstration Project

The Department of Health & Human Services, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently released information on the Home Health Pay for Performance Demonstration Project. This demonstration project is the Center’s next step in its quality home health care initiatives.

During fall 2007, home health agencies [HHA] will be solicited for participation in the project, which begins in January 2008. The seven states, representing the four regions [Northeast, South, Midwest, and West] selected for inclusion in this project, which extends over a two-year time period are [1] Alabama, [2] California, [3] Connecticut, [4] Georgia, [5] Illinois, [6] Massachusetts, and [7] Tennessee.

There are 7 quality measures to be included in this demonstration project study, all of which are from the current Outcome-Based Quality Improvement (OBQI) data set. These measures will be used to evaluate HHA performance, with participating agencies being randomly assigned to either a control or study group. These measures, which are also included in the Home Health Compare quality reporting, are:

• Acute Care Hospitalization Incidents
• Any Emergent Care Incidents

Functional Improvements:

• Bathing
• Ambulation/Locomotion
• Transferring
• Improvement in Surgical Wound’s Status
• Oral Medications Management Improvement

Participating agencies will be eligible to receive incentive payments and the project parameters indicate that no additional documentation will need to be submitted. In order to receive incentive payments, there are several areas of improvement that must be demonstrated, as outlined in the demonstration project. Measures that will be monitored for demonstrated improvement include quality improvement results, patient outcomes improvement, actual overall savings to the Medicare program and quality of care. Patient outcomes will be monitored over a time continuum in order to support sustained improvements.

It is the intent that this initiative focus on value based purchasing of services and care in relationship to patient outcomes and that both outcomes and efficiency be recognized and demonstrated and maintained. More information on this and other Home Health and Hospice demonstration projects is available at www.cms.hhs.gov/DemoProjects. Agencies within the states selected to participate in this demonstration project should give consideration to participating as active participation provides inclusion in the process and resulting outcomes which will affect the entire home care provider base.