Federal Home Health and Hospice Updates
(Jan. 14, 2025) Members should note the following recent updates from LeadingAge National:
Changes to OASIS Privacy Notice. As of Jan. 1, 2025, home health agencies can start to voluntarily report Outcome and Assessment Information Set (OASIS) data on all patients regardless of payer. With this change, agencies will be required to provide, according to the Home Health Conditions of Participation (CoPs), an OASIS privacy notice to all patients for whom the OASIS data is collected. Therefore, agencies should only provide patients with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Privacy Act Statement and Attachment A – Statement of Patient Privacy Rights, which is available on the Home Health Agency Center webpage in the OASIS section. Both documents are available in English and Spanish. Beginning Jan. 1, 2025, and until further notice, Attachment C – Notice About Privacy for Patients Who Don’t Have Medicare or Medicaid should not be provided to patients. The only population exclusions for OASIS reporting are patients under the age of 18 (some patients may turn 18 while on service and will need OASIS reported), those receiving maternity services, those receiving only personal care-type services, and patients with a single visit. Patients who are self-pay, supported through a charity-based payer, or have no payer will not be excluded.
Data Inconsistencies Raise Concerns with Hospice SFP. On Dec. 20th, CMS released the first list of 50 distinct hospice programs identified for the Special Focus Program (SFP). There are growing concerns regarding CMS’s transparency with the selection criteria for this program. Since publishing the original list and associated data sets on condition-level deficiencies and substantiated complaints, CMS revised the list of selected SFP hospices three times, adding new providers and removing others. LeadingAge National is strongly encouraging members to review the data currently posted on the SFP website under the Downloads section to confirm that their condition-level deficiencies and substantiated complaints are correctly recorded. If you find that this data is incorrect, please contact LeadingAge National at kbarnett@leadingage.org.
Home Health Telehealth Face-to-Face Clarification. On Jan. 8th, CMS hosted a Home Health and Hospice Open Door Forum (ODF), during which they incorrectly answered a question regarding the use of telehealth for the home health face-to-face encounter. CMS stated that telehealth could not be used for the home health face-to-face encounter and that it must be completed in person. This is incorrect. Per current guidance, “[u]nder the expansion of telehealth under the 1135 waiver, beneficiaries are able to use telehealth technologies with their doctors and practitioners from home (or other originating site) for the face-to-face encounter to qualify for Medicare home health care.” The American Relief Act of 2025 extended the COVID waiver of the geographic and originating site restrictions, allowing for the home health face-to-face encounter to be performed via telehealth in the patient’s home and in any geographic location until March 31, 2025. LeadingAge National will continue to keep members updated on the extension of these flexibilities and has reached out to CMS requesting a clarification to their statements.
Home Health Preview Reports for April 2025 Refresh Now Available. Home health agencies can now access their data for the April 2025 Home Health Care Compare refresh in their Internet Quality Improvement and Evaluation System (iQIES) account. For the April refresh, the Home Health OASIS measures will be updated.
New Hospice CAHPS Podcasts Outline 2025 Changes. The Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) Hospice Survey Project Team updated podcasts to reflect changes to the CAHPS Hospice Survey finalized in rulemaking last year. As a reminder, CMS finalized a shortened version of the survey that removes confusing and duplicative questions while streamlining other questions. Additionally, CMS changed the survey administration to include a new web-mail mode option, a pre-notification letter, and an extended field period from 42 to 49 days. In response to these changes, the team has updated the following podcasts available on their website: Overview of Requirements, the Data Hospices Must Provide to their Survey Vendor, the Data Collection Process, and the Public Reporting of CAHPS Hospice Survey Scores. The podcasts and transcripts are available on the Podcasts tile on the home page or on the Podcasts page in the Information for Hospices dropdown.
Hospice Member Network Call: Tues., Jan. 14th. The LeadingAge National Hospice Member Network will have their first meeting of 2025 on Tues., Jan. 14th at 2 p.m. ET. LeadingAge National has invited staff from the CMS Center for Program Integrity to join the call and discuss their ongoing efforts around hospice fraud. The Network will also discuss the release of the long-awaited SFP participant list for 2025. To join the Network, sign up here.