CMS this month announced it has posted the latest Home Health Agency Public Use File (PUF), with data from 2015.
 
The PUF contains information on home health utilization, payment, submitted charges and demographic and chronic condition indicators organized by CMS Certification Number, Home Health Resource Group and state of service.
 
The PUF has information for 10,526 home health agencies in 2015 — 356 fewer than in 2014.
 
It includes more than 6 million non-LUPA episodes involving nearly 3.5 million distinct beneficiaries.
 
The total home health Medicare payment amount (non-LUPA) was nearly $18.3 billion in 2015.
 
Hospice PUF also released
In March, CMS posted the latest Hospice PUF with provider data from 2015. That file has information for 4,021 hospices.
 
The Hospice PUF includes more than 1.4 million hospice beneficiaries, who spent more than 96 million total days in care.
 
The total Medicare payment amount for hospices in 2015 was $15.9 billion. 
 
Related links: View the Home Health PUF at https://go.cms.gov/2IHZkdu and the Hospice PUF at https://go.cms.gov/2vLUo1O.
 
 
Most commonly used HHRGs
 
The following data for the top five HHRGs by highest number of episodes in 2015 was released by CMS in April 2018. The trove of data is dubbed the Home Health Agency Utilization and Payment Public Use File (Home Health Agency PUF).
 
HHRG
HHRG description
Total number of episodes
Unique beneficiaries served
Average agency charge amount
Average Medicare payment amount
1BGK
Early episode, 0-13 therapies, clinical severity level 2,  functional severity level 2, service severity level 1
350,275
323,290
$1,852
 
$2,239
3BGK
Late episode, 0-13 therapies, clinical severity level 2,  functional severity level 2, service severity level 1
317,481
174,394
$2,053
$1,852
3CHK
Late episode, 0-13 therapies, clinical severity level 3, functional severity level 3, service severity level 1
279,605
138,335
$3,081
$2,542
1CGK
Early episode, 0-13 therapies, clinical severity level 3, functional severity level 2, service severity level 1
270,007
245,410
$2,393
$2,507
3CGK
Late episode, 0-13 therapies, clinical severity level 3,  functional severity level 2, service severity level 1
222,701
133,090
$2,750
$2,356
Source: CMS