The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) mandated the initiation of a quality reporting program for hospices (HQRP). The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) determines the quality measures that hospices must utilize, and the processes hospices must use to submit data for those measures. Hospices that fail to comply with HQRP requirements will incur a 2-percentage point reduction to the market basket percentage increase for the corresponding fiscal year.
HQRP Requirements
Hospices are required to comply with requirements for two HQRP program components that comprise the data sources for the measures:
- Hospice Item Set (HIS)… A component of the HQRP for the FY 2016 APU and subsequent years. HIS is a patient level data collection tool developed by CMS. Hospices are required to submit an HIS-Admission record and an HIS-Discharge record for each patient.
- CAHPS® Hospice Survey… A component of the HQRP for the FY 2017 APU and subsequent years. CAHPS Hospice is a postdeath family caregiver survey developed by CMS for the assessment of patient and family experiences with hospice care.
HQRP General Information
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- Quality Help Desk: HospiceQualityQuestions@cms.hhs.gov (For general HQRP questions)
- Technical Help Desk: help@qtso.com Phone: 1-877-201-4721 (Monday-Friday 7:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. Central Time). (For questions related to the HART tool, QIES ASAP, or other technical assistance information, including error messages or record rejections.)
- Reconsideration Help Desk: HospiceQRPReconsiderations@cms.hhs.gov (To submit a reconsideration request or to ask other questions related to reconsideration.)