Update on the Hospice Special Open Door Forum (ODF)

During their special Dec. 19 ODF for hospice providers, CMS covered various aspects of Hospice Quality Reporting Program (HQRP) which included the following:

availability of the data submission website;
information about how to access the data submission website; and
how to create a user account.

You may recall that as specified in the final rule for 2013, this coming year will be the first year in which Hospices will be required to submit quality data. This first year of mandatory reporting will require submission of the QAPI measure data in January and the pain measure (NQF #0209) data in April 2013. Hospices failing to report quality data in 2013 will have their market basket update reduced by 2% in FY 2014.

CMS also confirmed that the link for HQRP Data Entry and Submission will be available in late December to view, but will not be available for submission of data until Jan. 1. There is a wealth of information on this site which was covered during the ODF.

Additional highlights from the call include: Only one user per CCN account; utilizing the worksheets in advance of entering the data; understanding the warning and fatal messages; attestation; data submission for structural measures due Jan. 31, 2013; and data submission for pain measure due April 1, 2013.

CMS encouraged providers to send in their questions to help@qtso.com or call 1-877-201-4721.

Contact: Cheryl Udell, cudell@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8871