After years-long wait, PEPPERs now available

Effective Aug 10, 2026

Published Aug 10, 2026

Last Reviewed Aug 10, 2026

CMS has released the 2025 Program for Evaluating Payment Patterns Electronic Report (PEPPER) for home health agencies.

PEPPERs went offline in late 2023 for retooling and they finally returned in early August with agency-level data to help you spot billing patterns that routinely raise red flags for CMS and outside auditors.

The target areas identified in the updated home health PEPPERs include:

Low comorbidity
High comorbidity
Functional impairment medium
Functional impairment high
Average case mix
Average number of periods
Periods with low visits
Non-LUPA payments
Outlier payments
Admission source

Find training and resources at https://pepper.cbrpepper.org/training-home-health.html.

More info from CMS

How to Get Your PEPPER

Authorized officials (AOs), access managers (AMs), and staff end users (SEUs) can download their organization’s report from the PEPPER Portal.

How to become an SEU:

Sign in to the CMS Identity & Access (I&A) System using your existing NPPES or PECOS credentials.
Request the PEPPER business function for your organization. The Comparative Billing Report business function is also available and you can request it at the same time.
Your AO or AM must approve your request.

More Information:

Visit the Training & Resources webpage for more information about the release and the User Guide
See the I&A Quick Reference Guide and FAQs: Step-by-step instructions for AOs and AMs
Contact the External User Services Help Desk
Register for a webinar on September 24 at 1 pm ET

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