Agencies can, beginning July 20, access a free tool from quality improvement organization TMF Health Quality Institute that will help them address their risks for overpayment from Medicare, according to the TMF website.
 
The tool, known as the Program for Evaluating Payment Patterns Electronic Report (PEPPER), essentially consists of reports on billing rates in risk areas. These areas include: Outlier payments, average number of episodes per beneficiary, average case-mix, episodes with five or six visits, non-LUPA payments and high therapy utilization payments.
 
Such a tool is already available for hospices, short- and long-term acute care hospitals and other providers.
 
The report is available through the PEPPER Resources Portal, and no registration or account creation is needed, according to a TMF posting to the National Association for Home Care & Hospice.
 
The PEPPER for home health will be available to download as a Microsoft Excel file for about two years.
 
Meanwhile, a WebEx training session on the PEPPER will be conducted on July 30. For more information, visit the home health training and resources section of PEPPERresources.org.
 
Related links: Access the PEPPER user’s guide here: http://tinyurl.com/nrxfvyw. Access the PEPPER resources portal here: http://tinyurl.com/o2vxx8w.