The National Quality Forum (NQF) recently posted the annual list of Measures Under Consideration (MUC) for future use in the hospice quality reporting program (HQRP) and the home health quality reporting program (HHQRP). The NQF makes recommendations to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) regarding the use of the proposed measures in the various quality reporting programs.The MUCs are also reviewed by the Measure Applications Partnership, a statutorily required multi-stakeholder group; and the results of the review are usually available in the frist quarter of the calendar year.
These are the measures under consideration this year:
Hospice visits in the last days of life.  The measure of proportion for hospice patients who have received visits from a Registered Nurse or Medical Social Worker (non-telephonically) on at least two out of the final three days of the patient’s life. This measure is a variation of an existing HQRP measure by the same name.
Home Health Within-Stay Potentially Preventable Hospitalization Measure. This measure reports a home health agency (HHA)- level rate of risk-adjusted potentially preventable hospitalizations or observation stays that occur within a home health (HH) stay for all eligible stays at each agency. A HH stay is a sequence of HH payment episodes separated from other HH payment episodes by at least two days.
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