Deadline For Exempt Status Extended

To those HHAs that provide care to less than 60 patients ANNUALLY, the deadline has been extended to apply for exempt status.

Meaning, if you provided care to fewer than 60 patients between April 1, 2009 and March 31, 2010, you can apply for exemption status.

The official policy is listed as follows:

"Medicare-certified home health agencies that serve fewer than 60 unduplicated Home Health Care CAHPS survey-eligible patients over the course of the 12-month period from April 1, 2009 through March 31, 2010 will be exempted from participating in the Home Health Care CAHPS Survey for the calendar year 2012 annual payment update (APU).

Agencies seeking this exemption must provide a count of the number of patients who meet survey eligibility requirements that their agency served between April 1, 2009 and March 31, 2010. The count of the number of patients who meet survey eligibility requirements must be reported by completing and submitting the online form below."

The full ruling and form for exemption can be found here.

For all of your HHCAHPS needs, contact one of our experts at Pinnacle Quality Insight. We can get you started with HHCAHPS quickly and easily. Give us a call or send us an email, and we'll have you up and running within a few minutes.

Craig Christiansen
inquiries@mycahps.com
877.532.1233

HHCAHPS Checklist

I put together an HHCAHPS checklist some time ago. It includes all the necessary items you need to know, and to do in order to be HHCAHPS compliant. You can download it here.

Pinnacle Quality Insight is a CMS approved HHCAHPS vendor. We can help you reach full CMS compliance with HHCAHPS quickly and easily. In fact, all it takes is a phone call, and within about 20 minutes, we can get you up and running.


If you mention that you read this on my blog, I'll authorize your Pinnacle CAHPS rep to give you the first 2 months free.

Craig Christiansen
877-532-1233
Pinnacle Quality Insight
inquiries@mycahps.com

Important Reminder: Register for login credentials, and authorize your HHCAHPS vendor

Now that we are in the middle of the official "Dry Run" for HHCAHPS, there are important steps that need to be taken in order to avoid problems for your HHCAHPS vendor and their submission of your Dry Run results.

1. Register for login credentials on homehealthcahps.org
2. Once you have your username and password on homehealthcahps.org login, and authorize your selected HHCAHPS as your agency's vendor.

I've included a graphic of what the homepage looks like--where CMS has placed a new link on the front page pointing you to instructions for obtaining login credentials:

These instructions are also listed under the tab on the grey bar "For HHAs".

Once the "Dry Run" CAHPS calls are completed and data is collected, your vendor will need to upload the data to CMS's server. If you have not authorized your vendor on homehealthcahps.org , the upload will be rejected. This has happened already, prompting CMS to issue a news update on 7/22/2010 .

I've quoted the two reasons CMS has rejected HHCAHPS Dry Run data:

"Some vendors have already had their data uploads rejected for the following reasons:

1. the home health agency (HHA) had not authorized the vendor to submit HHCAHPS Survey data on its behalf; or

1. the HHA had authorized the vendor to submit data on its behalf, but the start date entered on the online “Authorize a Vendor” form that the HHA completed was after the sample month entered on the data file that the vendor attempted to submit."

To read more about these two reasons, read the entire article at https://homehealthcahps.org/GeneralInformation/Announcements.aspx#072210a

Pinnacle Quality Insight is an approved HHCAHPS survey vendor. We are here to make your HHCAHPS experience EASY. For help on this topic, or anything else in becoming CAHPS compliant, call and speak to one of our HHCAHPS experts at (877) 532-1233, or email us at inquiries@mycahps.com

Craig Christiansen
Pinnacle Quality Insight

HHCAHPS Timeline and "Dry Run"

Q3 of 2010 has finally arrived. And with its arrival comes the CMS Requirement for HHCAHPS compliance--to complete at least one month as a "Dry Run" with a CMS Approved HHCAHPS vendor during 3rd Quarter.

The purpose of a Dry Run is just like any dress rehearsal, to make sure that all systems are a go. A description found on CMS's website  is as follows:

"Agencies will be required to conduct a dry run for at least 1 month in third quarter CY 2010, and to begin data collection on an ongoing basis in October 2010. The dry run can be for any month during third quarter 2010 and can be for 1, 2, or 3 months.... agencies will be required to submit dry run data from the third quarter of CY 2010 to the Home Health CAHPS Data Center by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on January 21, 2011.....Dry run survey results will not be publicly reported...."

I recommend you find your vendor as soon as possible, and conduct a dry run. The documented benefit of conducting a dry run is to make sure all systems work properly--but for you as an agency, the benefit is far more important. Though you  may know how you are performing on other customer satisfaction surveys, it would be highly beneficial to know how you are doing on the HHCAHPS survey so you can make any changes necessary to the quality of care you give.

For additional information, contact one of our HHCAHPS experts at 877-532-1233, or info@mycahps.com. 

Craig Christiansen

CMS News: Now Allowing Patient-idendifying Data

Many HHA professionals that we have spoken with have expressed concern over the completely  anonymous nature of the HHCAHPS survey. The question that keeps coming up is, "How can I solve a patient-specific problem if the survey is anonymous?" 

Pinnacle Quality Insight and other vendors have brought this concern to CMS, and they have responded with a change to how it will be conducted, with a full article listed here. 

"Some Medicare-certified home health agencies... have asked their approved Home Health Care CAHPS Survey vendor to provide them with survey responses linked to their patients’ names so that they can respond to and address any specific needs that their patients report during the HHCAHPS survey.... "

"Survey vendors can share a respondent’s survey responses linked to his or her name with the client HHA only if the patient (hereafter referred to in this document as “the respondent) gives the survey vendor permission to do so."

"This means that survey vendors who have a client HHA that wishes to have access to identifying information that would link a respondent’s name to his or her survey responses must include the transition statement and question shown below in the survey instrument used with sample members selected from that HHA."

This represents an enormous opportunity for HHAs to use HHCAHPS for loyalty building with patients. When a complaint arises, simply addressing it right away can go a long way to diffuse a concern from becoming something more serious like a complaint to the state, or a lawsuit. 

Bear in mind, HHCAHPS can be just another expense to raise your blood pressure, OR you can treat it as the top-performing Health-Care companies do...an opportunity to improve your service image and foster loyalty with clients. 

Craig Christiansen
www.mycahps.com

From our FAQs: What if my agency isn't large enough to do 300 HHCAHPS surveys per year?

This is a question we have heard quite often lately. Many administrators and Directors of Nursing have heard that CMS wants 300 surveys completed per agency, but some agencies simply do not have the census to provide 300--even if we were to interview each patient twice. 


The official response from CMS is:


“In the proposed rule and in this final rule, we emphasized that HHAs should target 300 completes annually which averages about 25 completes a month. However, we equally emphasized that smaller agencies that are unable to reach 300 survey completes by sampling should survey all HHCAHPS eligible patients. We will accept less than 300 survey completes annually if an agency is unable to achieve that number. Compliance is based on whether the agency did the survey and followed the protocols. It is not based on the number of patients that responded to the survey.”
http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/pdf/E9-26503.pdf  
(See page 28 for the entire quote)


So, contract with an approved survey vendor, and they will complete as many surveys as possible.


For help with HHCAHPS, or to speak with an HHCAHPS expert, email inquiries@mycahps.com or call 801-293-0700.


Craig Christiansen
www.mycahps.com
www.pinnacleqi.com

Phone vs. Mailer for HHCAHPS

Decisions... Decisions. 

With 34 different vendors to choose from, one of the top questions to make your job easier in selecting a vendor is, "Do I want my patients called, mailed, or both.... or does it just flat out not matter to me?"

Some agencies like the personal touch of the phone call. Some agencies prefer the cheaper option of mailing. And some really don't care, just get it off their plate. We have run into all types of responses in speaking with administrators all over the country.

This post is intended to discuss the different options you have, and give a fair, balanced look at each one--in order to help you in your decision.

Disclaimer: Pinnacle Quality Insight is a phone-only vendor--but I'll still do my absolute DARNDEST to not show that bias.

1. Mailer Only: The mailer is the most popular option offered by the vendors. I'm not sure on exact numbers, but it seems like about 4 out of 5 vendors are mail-only option--if not higher. There are some polarizing pros and cons about mailers. 

•  Pros: Overall less expensive, easier for those with hearing difficulties to give feedback 
• Cons: Impersonal, a longer delay in receiving results, more difficult for those with vision difficulties or joint pain

2. Phone Only: The phone-only approach is offered by a handful of vendors. If you want your patients called, this automatically makes the decision easier. 

• Pros: More personable, shows a more proactive approach to seeking feedback, gives patients with arthritis or vision difficulty an opportunity to voice their feedback, much easier for qualitative feedback, less likely to procrastinate the survey when they answer  the phone.
• Cons: Could be more expensive, more difficult for those with hearing loss.

3. Mixed Mode: Very few companies offer the mixed mode approach, which is where a patient is mailed, then called if the mailer isn't returned.

• Pros: Could be higher response rate, able to contact people with vision difficulties who weren't able to fill out mailer, able to contact patients with hearing difficulties where a mailer would be a better fit. 
• Cons: So far, we've seen this as the most costly of the three options. The mailer can still seem impersonal, and the follow-up phone calls can come across like you are nagging them because they didn't do their assignment.

HHCAHPS can be used by Home Health Agencies as a valuable tool to grow their business. The key question agency owners and administrators need to consider, is how do they want to use it? If the desire is to have HHCAHPS send a strong service image about the agency and increase patient loyalty, then a phone interview would be the better option. If the desire is to just have the survey results  to review and make changes, then either option would work.

For help with HHCAHPS, or to speak with an HHCAHPS expert, email inquiries@mycahps.com or call 801-293-0700. 


--Craig Christiansen
www.mycahps.com
www.pinnacleqi.com