Choosing the right home health care provider can feel overwhelming. Medicare’s Care Compare website is a valuable tool designed to simplify this process. One of its key features is the home health star ratings system, which helps you quickly assess and Home Health Compare different agencies based on their performance and patient experiences. This guide will explain what these star ratings are, how they’re calculated, and how you can use them to make informed decisions about your home health care needs.
Understanding Home Health Star Ratings
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) developed the Care Compare website, accessible through Medicare.gov, to empower consumers like you. It serves as an official, user-friendly resource for information about the quality of care provided by different home health agencies. To make this information easily digestible, Care Compare utilizes home health star ratings. Think of these ratings as a quick summary of complex performance data, presented in a familiar and intuitive star system. While star ratings are a powerful tool for home health compare, remember that they are meant to be used alongside the other detailed quality information available on Care Compare.
How Home Health Star Ratings Are Calculated: A Transparent Process
CMS understands the importance of transparency, especially when it comes to data that impacts both consumers and home health agencies. The development of home health star ratings was a collaborative effort, incorporating feedback from various stakeholders. This ensures that the ratings are not only statistically sound but also reflect the real-world experiences of those who use and are affected by them. The current methodology for calculating these ratings is based on ongoing data analysis and valuable input from stakeholders. CMS is committed to continuous improvement, and the home health star ratings are expected to evolve over time as new data and insights become available.
Two Key Types of Home Health Star Ratings for Comparison
When you home health compare agencies on Care Compare, you’ll encounter two distinct types of star ratings:
- Quality of Patient Care Star Ratings: These ratings focus on how well agencies deliver actual care to their patients.
- Patient Survey Star Ratings: These ratings reflect patients’ experiences and satisfaction with the care they received.
Let’s delve deeper into each type to understand what they measure and how they can help you home health compare home health agencies effectively.
Quality of Patient Care Star Ratings: Measuring Care Delivery
The Quality of Patient Care (QoPC) Star Rating provides an assessment of an agency’s clinical performance. It’s calculated using data from OASIS (Outcome and Assessment Information Set) assessments and Medicare claims. CMS began publishing these ratings in July 2015 and updates them quarterly as new data becomes available on Care Compare.
To receive a QoPC Star Rating, home health agencies must meet specific data reporting criteria. They need to have data for at least 20 completed quality episodes for each measure used in the rating. These episodes are defined by the start or resumption of care and end of care OASIS assessments, with the end-of-care date falling within the 12-month reporting period. Furthermore, agencies must report data for at least 5 out of the 7 measures included in the QoPC Star Ratings calculation to receive a rating. The detailed methodology for calculating the QoPC Star Rating is publicly available for download, ensuring full transparency. Agencies also receive preview reports before the public release of ratings, allowing them to verify the accuracy of the calculations.
Measures Included in Quality of Patient Care Star Ratings
The measures used to determine the QoPC Star Rating are carefully selected to reflect key aspects of home health care quality. These measures are chosen based on several criteria:
- Broad Applicability: They should apply to a large proportion of home health patients and have sufficient data available for most agencies.
- Meaningful Variation: They should highlight differences in performance between agencies and allow for improvement over time.
- Clinical Relevance and Validity: They must be clinically meaningful and accurately reflect the quality of care.
- Stability: They should be consistent and not subject to random fluctuations.
- Responsiveness to Improvement: They should be able to show positive changes in agency performance over time.
The seven measures currently included in the Quality of Patient Care Star Rating are:
- Timely Initiation of Care (Process Measure): Ensures care begins promptly when needed.
- Improvement in Ambulation (Outcome Measure): Measures progress in patients’ ability to walk.
- Improvement in Bed Transferring (Outcome Measure): Assesses improvement in patients’ ability to move in and out of bed.
- Improvement in Bathing (Outcome Measure): Tracks progress in patients’ ability to bathe themselves.
- Improvement in Shortness of Breath (Outcome Measure): Measures improvement in managing breathing difficulties.
- Improvement in Management of Oral Medications (Outcome Measure): Assesses progress in patients’ ability to manage their medications.
- Potentially Preventable Hospitalization (Outcome Measure): Indicates the rate of hospitalizations that might have been avoided with better home health care.
Patient Survey Star Ratings: Understanding Patient Experiences
In addition to clinical quality, patient experience is a critical aspect of care. The Patient Survey Star Ratings address this by summarizing patient feedback collected through the Home Health CAHPS (Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) Survey. CMS started publishing these ratings in January 2016 and updates them quarterly, with detailed information available on the HHCAHPS website.
To receive a Patient Survey Star Rating, agencies must have at least 40 completed surveys over a four-quarter reporting period. This threshold ensures the statistical reliability of the data. Agencies with fewer than 40 surveys still have their HHCAHPS data reported on Care Compare, but they do not receive star ratings. Similar to QoPC ratings, agencies receive preview reports before public release to verify accuracy.
Measures Included in Patient Survey Star Ratings
The Patient Survey Star Ratings are based on four key measures derived from the HHCAHPS survey, focusing on different facets of patient experience:
- Care of Patients: Reflects patient perceptions of the overall care received (based on survey items Q9, Q16, Q19, and Q24).
- Communication Between Providers and Patients: Assesses how well providers communicate with patients (based on survey items Q2, Q15, Q17, Q18, Q22, and Q23).
- Specific Care Issues: Covers patient experiences with specific aspects of care, such as medication management and pain control (based on survey items Q3, Q4, Q5, Q10, Q12, Q13, and Q14).
- Overall Rating of Care Provided by the Home Health Agency: Represents the patient’s global evaluation of the agency (based on survey item Q20).
It’s worth noting that the “Willingness to Recommend the HHA” item is not included in the star rating calculation because its results were very similar to the “Overall Rating of Care.”
Learn More and Get Involved
Do you have questions or feedback about home health star ratings and home health compare? Here’s how to get in touch:
- Patient Survey Stars & Home Health CAHPS: Contact them via the HHCAHPS website or call 1-866-354-0985.
- Quality of Patient Care Star Ratings: Email your inquiries to [email protected].
- Formal Review Requests for Quality of Patient Care Star Ratings: Submit requests, including data suppression requests, to [email protected].
Remember, when contacting these resources, never include identifiable patient information such as medical record numbers or dates of birth to protect patient privacy.
For further details, explore the Downloads section on the original CMS webpage (linked in the original article). You’ll find valuable resources like sample preview reports, methodology documents, and a Frequently Asked Questions document that is regularly updated. Your questions and comments are encouraged and can be sent to [email protected]. By using Care Compare and understanding home health star ratings, you can confidently home health compare agencies and make the best choice for your home health care needs.
