The demand for home and community-based care will grow due to aging baby boomers, elderly preference to age at home, and healthcare cost reduction pressures. Despite growth opportunities, home healthcare providers will face headwinds in 2024, including a persistent labor shortage, heightened competition, reimbursement cuts,… Read More »Industry Trends Shaping Home Health in 2024
The CY 2024 Home Health Final Payment Rule introduces a wave of changes, including updates on the comorbidity adjustments. The final rule reads: “only those subgroups of diagnoses that represent more than 0.1 percent of periods of care and that have at least as high… Read More »Comorbidity Adjustment Changes in 2024
The 2024 Home Health Final Payment Rule, released on November 1, 2023, brings significant changes directly impacting the Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) model in 2025. We have summarized these changes and added some notes about their implications. While VBP generally stays the same in 2024, maintaining… Read More »[CY 2024 Final Rule] Upcoming Changes to HHVBP
Last month, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued notifications to home health agencies found to be non-compliant with the Home Health Quality Reporting Program (HHQRP) requirements for the calendar year (CY) 2022. Consequently, these agencies will face a 2% reduction in payment… Read More »Quality Reporting Compliance: What Qualifies as Quality Care Episode?
Conducting the Initial Therapy Evaluation There are two objectives to fulfill when conducting the initial therapy evaluation: 1) emphasize that skilled therapy services are medically necessary, and 2) identify the specific areas to focus on during succeeding patient visits. Obtaining approval from the certifying physician… Read More »Enhancing Home Health Therapy Documentation Practices
The latest version of the Performance and Improvement Progress Report (PIPR) was released in April 2023, accessible through the iQIES system, your usual source for CASPER reports. PIPRs show your current percentile ranking for each outcome measure when compared to agencies nationwide that belong to… Read More »New PIPR is Out: What’s In It for You?
Three years after introducing the Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM), is your agency applying best practices and the right strategies for accurate and compliant coding? Coding has become more critical and complex with the implementation of PDGM and recent developments of guidelines regarding the relevance of… Read More »F2F Encounter FAQs: Everything You Need to Know
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently updated the Home Health Quality Reporting Program (HH QRP) Measure Calculations and Reporting User’s Manual. This is the first update since the Version 1.0 Addendum in October 2020 and it includes important additions, deletions, language corrections,… Read More »[QRP] Quality Reporting Updates You Need to Know
With recent efforts to capture Social Determinants of Health and its impact on patient outcomes, starting April 1, 2023, 42 new codes will be added to the ICD-10-CM with 9 of those addressing issues like inadequate housing, health literacy, and personal history of abuse. These… Read More »ICD-10 Code Changes Effective April 1st; New SDoH Codes
The Biden administration announced that the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) is set to conclude on May 11, 2023, after 3 years. While home health stakeholders initially feared the end of the PHE, it appears that it may not have as significant an impact on… Read More »PHE Conclusion: What Does It Mean for Home Health?
