In Case You Missed It: Home Health Compare Tool Retired, Data Refresh Delayed Until 2022

CMS Delays Home Health Compare Refresh Until January 2022 due to COVID-19 waivers

Due to the Public Health Emergency (PHE), home health agencies (HHAs) were exempt from the Home Health Quality Reporting Program (HH QRP) reporting requirements. The time period covered by this exemption is October 1, 2019 through June 30, 2020. During the November 4 Home Health, Hospice & DME Open Door Forum, CMS stated the rationale for delaying the next refresh until January 2022 is due to the exempted submission time period would not impact the reporting.

Effective Dec. 1 Care Compare Replaces Compare Tool     

CMS also announced the retirement of the original Compare Tools on December 1 with instructions to use Medicare.gov’s Care Compare to find and compare health care providers. In early September, CMS released Care Compare on Medicare.gov, which streamlines the eight original health care compare tools.

The eight original compare tools – doctors and clinicians, hospitals, nursing homes, home health services, hospice care, inpatient rehabilitation facilities, long-term care hospitals and dialysis facilities – will be retired on December 1. If you haven’t been using Care Compare, CMS urges you to:

• Use Care Compare on Medicare.gov and encourage people with Medicare and their caregivers to start using it, too. Go to Medicare.gov and choose “Find care”.

• Update any links to the eight original care tools on your public-facing websites to direct your audiences to Care Compare.

Care Compare offers a new design that makes it easier to find the same information that’s on the original compare tools. It gives you, patients, and caregivers one user-friendly place to find cost, quality of care, service volume, and other CMS quality data to help make informed health care decisions.

Now, instead of having to search through many compare tools, with just one click on Care Compare, you’ll find easy-to-understand information about Doctors and clinicians, Hospitals, Nursing homes, Home health services, Hospice care, Inpatient rehabilitation facilities, Long-term care hospitals and Dialysis facilities.

Fully transitioning to this tool does not change how CMS measures quality. In addition, CMS will continue to make improvements to Care Compare and the Provider Data Catalog based on stakeholder and consumer feedback now and in the future.

Resources:

CMS Newsroom:  https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/press-releases/cms-care-compare-empowers-patients-when-making-important-health-care-decisions

Care Compare:  https://www.medicare.gov/care-compare/