Posted January 11, 2023
The Q4 2022 Hospice Quality Reporting Program (HQRP) Update has been posted to the HQRP Requirements and Best Practices webpage.
As a reminder, the HQRP Quarterly Update will no longer be posted. Instead, it will be distributed via email and providers can sign up for the quarterly informational emails at QRPHelp@swingtech.com
Also, a reminder that as of October 2022, CMS is no longer posting the annual list of hospices who are compliant with the HQRP requirements for the previous fiscal year. Only letters of non-compliance will be sent to the hospices who have not met the HQRP requirements for the previous calendar year and are thus subject to the 4% Annual Payment Update (APU) penalty for the respective fiscal year. These letters are sent by the MAC and are also placed in a hospice’s CASPER folder. Questions regarding your hospice’s compliance, should be sent to QRPHelp@swingtech.com for assistance.
CMS reminded hospices that the FY2024 annual payment update is based on the CY2022 data submissions. Hospices must comply with the following HIS and Hospice CAHPS Survey participation requirements to avoid the Annual Payment Update (APU) penalty which increases to 4% in FY2024.
- Submit at least 90% of HIS records within the 30 days of the event date (patient’s admission or discharge) for patient admissions/discharges occurring 1/1/22 – 12/31/22
- Ongoing monthly participation in the CAHPS Hospice Survey 1/1/22 – 12/31/22
- The APU penalty increase is a permanent increase. Therefore, beginning January 1, 2023, hospices must meet these same requirements for the 2023 calendar year. There is no exemption for the HIS requirements. There are two exemptions – for size and for newness – for the CAHPS Hospice Survey requirements if hospices meet certain criteria. More information on the CAHPS Hospice Survey exemptions for CY2023, impacting the FY 2025 APU, can be found here.
- At any time if a hospice experiences an extraordinary circumstance, it can initiate a request for extension or exemption of the HIS and CAHPS Hospice Survey requirements. Requests must be initiated within 90 days of the extraordinary circumstances event and must be sent to CMS via email following the instructions provided on the Extension and Exemption Requests webpage.
- The next refresh of Care Compare data is scheduled for February 2023. Providers can access the latest Provider Preview Reports via their CASPER folder, but these reports are only available until January 8, 2023. The Preview Reports were released on November 9, 2022. Once released in CASPER, providers have 30 days during which to review their quality measure results (December 9, 2022). Although the actual “preview period” is 30 days, the reports continue to be available for another 30 days, or a total of 60 days (January 8, 2023). Therefore, CMS encourages providers to download and save their Hospice Provider Preview Reports for future reference, as they will no longer be available in CASPER after this 60-day period. Learn more about the Provider Preview Report (HIS and Claims-based measures) here and about the CAHPS Preview Report here. Hospice QRP Key Dates for Providers can be found here. The 3rd Edition HQRP Public Reporting Tip Sheet is available here.
- Hospices have long been awaiting more information on the HOPE – Hospice Outcome & Patient Evaluation tool. In this latest Update CMS shared that HOPE Beta Test assessment data collection is now complete, and CMS is beginning the analysis phase. It is anticipated that this phase will conclude in late spring 2023. This is also when the hospice proposed payment update rule is usually released. More information about the HOPE may be contained in the proposed rule and/or outside of the rule. Stay tuned to NAHC Report for more information as it becomes available.
Source: CMS
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