CMS recently released a list of measures under consideration for various Medicare programs, including the Home Health Quality Reporting Program (HHQRP) and Hospice Quality Reporting Program (HQRP).
On the home health side, CMS is considering the measures “Transfer of Health Information to Provider—Post-Acute Care” and “Transfer of Health Information to Patient—Post-Acute Care.”
These process measures are designed to assess and report on timely transfer of health information when a patient is discharged, and specifically assess for the transfer of a current, reconciled medication list. One calculates the proportion of quality episodes that indicate a current, reconciled medication list was provided at the time of discharge or transfer to the subsequent provider and the other calculates the same was done for the patient, family and/or caregiver.
For the hospice quality reporting program, the measure “Transitions from Hospice Care, Followed by Death or Acute Care” is being considered.
This outcome measure is designed to estimate the risk-adjusted rate of transitions from hospice care followed by death within 30 days or acute care use within 7 days, according to CMS.
“The measure is risk adjusted to ‘level the playing field’ to allow comparison based on patients with similar characteristics between hospices,” the CMS report states.
The measure would be used to identify hospices with higher rates of negative outcomes.