Friday, October 30, 2015

CMS Issues Final Home Health PPS Rules and Rate for 2016 - 10-30-2015

CMS has rolled full speed ahead ignoring letters from Senators, members of Congress, and others issuing the Final Home Health PPS Rules and Rates for 2016.  CMS estimates that home health payments will be reduced by 1.4% or $260 million.  The changes include the third year 2.4% reduction for rebasing payments, a .97% reduction for case mix creep, and a 1.4 percent inflation increase.  We will have more emails next week on payment rate specifics.

CMS has also finalized the Home Health Value-Based Purchasing Model.  They have reduced the number of process measures from 10 to 6; have 10 outcome measures; 5 HHCAHPS measures, and reduced the number of reporting measures from 4 to 3.  CMS has made some adjustments to the payment amounts by lowering the first year to a plus or minus 3 percent.  The fifth year will be plus or minus 8 percent. 

If your home health agency is located in Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, North Carolina, Tennessee, or Washington you will be required to participate in the model beginning on January 1, 2016.  Actually they have already been collecting data for their base year which will be 2015.

If you are located in one of the 9 states listed above you have 63 days to be ready for HHVPM to begin.  We have two timely One Day Seminars that will give you the information you need to prepare for the changes.  They are titled Winning Strategies – Home Health Value Based Payments.  The first seminar will be held in Louisville, KY on November 10th.  The second seminar will be held in Orlando, FL on November 17th.  The seminar topics are:

Understanding the Home Health Value-Based Purchasing Model
How to Succeed Under Home Health Value Based Purchasing
Review of Final Home Health Rules and Rates for 2016
SMART Marketing to Grow and Prosper

 We are pleased to offer $100 per person discount off the current rate because of a sponsorship by TurboQuisine.  The discounted rate including the $100 discount is $269 for the first person and $199 for additional people from the same agency.  

We have a Temporary Link to the Final Rule because the final rule will not be published in the Federal Register until November 5th.


We developed a free 10 minute video that could help you to solve 5 major issues impacting your home health agency.  We have always tried to have our clients, seminar attendees and friends to learn to think outside the box.  This video really hits on that point.  Watch the video and let us know your opinion.

For more information please use the following link

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