A recent CMS training call about the CAHPS Hospice Survey alerted hospices that survey results won’t be publicly reported for about a year or longer. But hospices still need to send in their data now or they could face financial repercussions.
 
During a Sept. 30 vendor training call, CMS said it needed four quarters of data in order to make information from the experience of care survey publicly available. Although four quarters of data will be available in the second quarter of 2016, public reporting likely won’t even occur then, CMS says.
 
That’s because the formula for calculation of survey scores based on the 47 questions hasn’t been determined yet, says Katie Wehri, hospice operations expert for the National Association for Home Care & Hospice.
 
Scores themselves, for the near future, will not affect hospices’ payment. However, hospice payment is affected if survey data is not successfully submitted to CMS. And hospices are responsible for verifying that their vendors have successfully submitted data.
 
The survey launched April 1, and vendors at this point must send in results quarterly.
 
Successfully submitting data in 2015 affects your hospice’s 2017 fiscal year annual payment update by 2%, and successfully submitting data in 2016 affects your hospice’s 2018 fiscal year annual payment update by 2%, Wehri says.
 
Late submissions won’t be accepted, CMS adds. However, new hospices automatically receive a one-time exemption and hospices can seek annually to be exempted based upon their size.
 
The deadline has passed this year for small hospices to seek to be exempted. Hospices can seek in 2016 to be exempted if they have fewer than 50 deaths in 2015. The deadline for CMS to receive the Participation Exemption for Size Form for 2015 deaths is Aug. 11, 2016. 
 
Related link: View more about the survey at http://www.hospicecahpssurvey.org.