Medicare 5 Star Rating System Now Available For Home Health Agencies

In July, CMS announced the release of its 5 Star Rating System for Home Health Agencies (HHA). According to an article in the Kaiser Health News (KHN),

[t]he ratings are based on agencies’ assessments of their own patients, which the agencies report to the government, as well as Medicare billing records. The data is adjusted to take into account how frail the patients are and other potential influences. Medicare intends to use the same or similar data sources when it eventually begins to pay bonuses and penalties to agencies based on performance, as it does for hospitals.

According to Medicare’s blog, HHAs are rated in 9 categories, including wound care and prevention of bed sores, handling daily activities, controlling pain, and protecting the patient from harm. To learn more, click here to visit the HHA Compare website.