At a Medicare Learning Network (MLN) Event on October 3 2018, CMS presented the rationale, timing, and impact of modifications to the Quality of Patient Care Star (QoPC) Rating for Home Health Agencies (HHAs).
- The removal from the QoPC Star Ratings the measure “Drug Education on all Medications Provided to Patient/Caregiver.”
- The decision to remove this measure is based on the rationale that the measure was no longer meaningful in comparing across HHAs.
- The addition to the QoPC Star Ratings the measure “Improvement in Management of Oral Medications” which is currently reported on Home Health Compare:
- Rationale for Adding “Improvement in Management of Oral Medications”: This measure is risk-adjusted using a rich set of risk factors from the OASIS, including living arrangement.
- Risk adjusted performance shows no difference between HHAs serving high or low proportions of patients living in a congregate setting.
- Medication management is an important clinical area of home health care.
- As fewer measures are included in the calculation, the QoPC Star Rating becomes less representative of overall home health quality. Including this measure maintains the number of component measures at 8 (after the removal of the “Drug Education on All Medications Provided to Patient/Caregiver” measure).
Timeline for Changes to QoPC Star Rating:
First QoPC Star Rating Provider Preview Reports to HHAs using new calculation algorithm is expected to occur in January 2019.
- Home Health Compare refresh displaying the updated QoPC Star Rating is therefore expected to take place in April 2019.
- All OASIS-based measures report on data from July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018.
- Claims-based measures will report on data from CY2017 (updated annually).
Read more:
- MLN HH Qualtiy presentation: https://www.cms.gov/Outreach-and-Education/Outreach/NPC/Downloads/2018-10-03-HH-Quality-Presentation.pdf
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