Home Health: Quality Reporting, Value-Based Purchasing Proposals Finalized

​The final 2016 Home Health Prospective Payment System, announced last week by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), includes revised quality reporting requirements and details of the first stages of CMS's home health value-based purchasing program. Beginning with the new year, home health agencies will be required to report quality data regarding skin integrity and changes to skin integrity; failure to do so will result in a 2% cut in their payment update. Agencies will be required to report data on 70% of their patients for episodes of care beginning July 1, 2015, increasing to 80% by July 2016 and 90% by July 2017.