August 30 2024
OASIS

Are You Ready to Review your HHA’s first HHVBP APR?

by Elaine Gardner, MS, RN, COS-C, CPHQ, CHPN

What is an HHVBP APR?

The Home Health Value-Based Purchasing (HHVBP) APR is the “Annual Performance Report” that CMS provides to home health agencies (HHAs) in the national expanded HHVBP Model. The first APR for the expanded Model was released to HHAs on Friday, August 23rd.

What is provided in the expanded HHVBP Model CY 2024 APR and when will this be available?

This first expanded HHVBP Model Annual Performance Report (APR) will include the home health agency’s (HHA’s) calendar year (CY) 2025 HHVBP Model adjusted payment percentage (APP) based on performance during CY 2023. This report, labeled as the “CY 2024 APR”, will include:

Data from the January 1, 2023 – December 31, 2023, time period for each of the 12 applicable measures in the expanded HHVBP Model measure set, and
The APP for the upcoming calendar year, CY 2025.

HHAs will receive a CY 2024 APR and the APP if they were Medicare-certified prior to January 1, 2022, and had sufficient data for at least five (5) quality measures to calculate a Total Performance Score (TPS). The APR also includes an explanation of when the adjustment will apply, how CMS determined the adjustment relative to HHA performance scores, and what the TPS and APP statistics are for the HHA’s cohort.

The first expanded HHVBP Model APR was made available in iQIES on Friday, August 23, 2024. iQIES users authorized to view an HHA’s OASIS quality report are notified via email (GovDelivery) of the distribution of HHVBP reports. Access instructions to the expanded HHVBP Model performance feedback reports are available on the Expanded HHVBP Model webpage here.

Keep a lookout for the 3 versions of the CY 2024 APR, starting August 23rd

The CY 2024 APR will be provided in 3 versions: Preview, Preliminary, and Final, as there is an appeals process available to HHAs believing there is an error in the values of the APR. The timeline and process for each version are as follows:

The Preview version is the first version was published August 23, 2024 in iQIES. If an HHA believes there is an error in the values of the Preview CY 2024 APR, they may submit a recalculation request within 15 calendar days after publication. HHAs may submit requests for recalculation by emailing hhvbp_recalculation_requests@abtassoc.com.
The Preliminary version of the APR will be available in iQIES in September or October once CMS investigates recalculation requests, makes adjustments/corrections if needed, and notifies HHAs of the decision to grant or deny requests. If an HHA disagrees with the recalculation request decision, they may submit a reconsideration request within 15 days of publication of the Preliminary APR. CMS then investigates the reconsideration requests and notifies HHAs of the decisions. At that point, HHAs have 7 calendar days to submit a request for CMS Administrator Review if they are not in agreement with the reconsideration request decision.
CMS makes the Final APRs available in iQIES once all requests and reviews are processed. The Final APRs will be published no later than 30 calendar days before the payment adjustment takes effect in the subsequent calendar year, CY 2025.

So you can see it is important to receive these timely notification emails from CMS regarding the publication of the HHVBP Model Reports! Remember to access and review each version of your HHA’s CY 2024 APR. To receive the CMS email updates, subscribe to the Expanded HHVBP Model listserv.

Enter your email address in the contact form, then select “Home Health Value-Based Purchasing (HHVBP) Expanded Model” from the Innovations list. To ensure you receive HHVBP Expanded Model communications via email, then add “cmslists@subscriptions.cms.hhs.gov” to your email safe sender list. For assistance with the subscription service, you can contact Subscriber Help.

For additional information on the expanded HHVBP Model, access the CMS resources provided on the CMS Expanded HHVBP Model webpage!