What is the Hospice Quality Reporting Program (HQRP)?
What is the purpose of hospice quality reporting? The Affordable Care Act authorized the establishment of a Quality Reporting Program for hospices. The Hospice Quality Reporting Program (HQRP) was established in 2014. HQRP aims to ensure that the level of...
What is Hospice Item Set (HIS)?
All Medicare certified hospice agencies must submit an HIS Admission and HIS Discharge record on all admissions and discharges from their agency. The report must include all patients, irrespective of payer source, patient age, or location where hospice services were...
What is the CAHPS survey?
The CAHPS survey is intended to measure the experience of patients who had died while receiving hospice care and the experience of their primary caregivers. It surveys informal caregivers – usually family members – of the persons who died under hospice care. The...
What is a hospice PEPPER report?
Program for Evaluating Payment Patterns Electronic Reports (PEPPER) is a data analysis report that has been available for hospices since 2012. This report contains claims data statistics based upon UB-04 claims data submissions for a single hospice agency. The...
Understanding the PEPPER Report
The PEPPER report target areas focus on statistics that will identify potential for improper Medicare billing. Comparison to national, jurisdictional, and state percentiles can highlight a hospice agency’s potential need for change to its practices to guard against...
What is Hospice Visits in the Last Days of Life (HVLDL)?
HVLDL is an HQRP claims-based measure of the proportion of patients who have received in-person visits from a registered nurse (RN) or a medical social worker (MSW) on at least two of the final three days of life. This metric replaces the HIS-based measure Hospice...
What is Hospice Care Index (HCI)?
HCI is a single comprehensive metric reflecting ten indicators of care delivered during a hospice stay -- from admission to discharge. This metric, which is included in the patient Care Compare portal, is intended to provide patients, families, and caregivers...
Must every hospice participate in the CAHPS hospice survey?
What is the CAHPS hospice survey? The CAHPS hospice survey is administered to eligible caregivers after a patient’s death to measure the quality of care and communication provided by the hospice. A hospice agency must participate in the CAHPS Hospice Survey to be...
Selecting a CAHPS Hospice Survey Vendor
Why should a hospice agency use a CAHPS Hospice Survey vendor? A hospice agency is not permitted to administer its own CAHPS Hospice Surveys. Instead, every hospice agency is required to contract with an approved CAHPS Hospice Survey vendor. The vendor will administer...
Can you deduct pay from a salaried exempt employee?
What is an exempt employee? Exempt workers are paid on a salaried basis. Salaried employees receive a prespecified amount of compensation each pay period. Their salary may not be reduced because of changes in the amount of work performed or because of changes in the...