Quality of care tracking and reporting is becoming a much larger component of operations for hospices. CMS is actively working on providing more data to the public through various methods with the most common being Hospice Compare.
Hospice Compare
Hospice Compare’s latest refresh occurred in February (2/21/2018) for Q2 2016 through Q1 2017. The website itself continues to undergo background changes to allow for users to easily find hospices in their area.
Providers are also reminded to check their preview reports in CASPER this month. The preview reports will display the coverage from Quarter 4 2016 through Quarter 3 2017. The data is likely to be available in July, as you only have until June 30th to review the information in CASPER and download your reports. CMS encourages providers to contact CMS if you believe an error has occurred and the preview reports are incorrect.
To view your public information that patients see, please visit: https://www.medicare.gov/hospicecompare/
To view your preview reports, please login to the CMS reporting portal: https://qtso.cms.gov/
Timely Submission of Data & Hospice Item Set (HIS)
CMS’ focus on data continues. All providers must be submitting their HIS data regularly and on time. For hospices to be in compliance, 90% of HIS data must be reported with 30 days of admitting a patient or discharging a patient.
If you organization is unable to submit data for some reason within the 30 day time frame, please make sure to submit as soon as possible. The data will be marked late but still accepted. Since this data is strictly tied public reporting via Hospice Compare, it is essential you report your information if you want to be included. For some providers, no publicly reported data can impact referral sources and relationships with other providers.
HIS deadlines still remain the same: 14 days is the recommended time frame for data submission. This is considered timely even though there is a 40 day window. Certain measures captured by admissions can have varying deadlines but for best practices, 14 days is the desired timeframe.
Hospices should have staff dedicated to monitoring CASPER for new reports and any rejections of HIS data. The reports received after submission of HIS data should carefully be reviewed for errors and corrected. All submission reports should be saved electronically as a PDF or printed and stored in a binder for compliance with regulatory bodies.
Quality assurance for any organization should always be a priority. As CMS moves more towards pay for play models, the ability to have control over documentation and care is going to be essential to future reimbursement methods. As the public also becomes more tech savvy and aware of data that is available to them, reporting is now a standard that must be followed, not an optional activity. Please contact us with any questions you may have.