Posted by Cheri Whalen on Tue, Feb 23, 2010 @ 11:24 AM
By now, I’m sure most home health agencies have heard about the HHCAHPS survey as required in the new HH PPS rules for 2010. However, I have found that some agencies are not familiar with the changes CMS included in the final 2010 rules posted 11/10/2009. In this article, I’m going to tell you what you need to know in the simplest terms.
- HHCAHPS is VOLUNTARY fro
m October 2009 thru September 2010; the dry run data submission is required for the 3rd quarter of 2010 (Oct, Nov, Dec) and must be submitted to your HHCAHPS vendor by January 21, 2011. - Eligibility for a full 2010 annual payment update is dependent upon HHAs submitting data to their CAHPS vendor. KEEP IN MIND… Agencies may choose not to participate in the survey if they believe the costs of participating will exceed the 2% reduction of the full annual payment update you would otherwise receive.
- Providers with fewer than 60 eligible, unduplicated patients are exempt from the data collection from 3rd quarter 2010 thru 2nd quarter 2011. (Each year, the unduplicated patient count from October 1 through Sept 30 (of a given year) will be used to determine HHCAHPS eligibility for the next year.)
- By June 16, 2010, HHAs with less than 60 eligible patients must provide CMS with a patient count for the period of April 1, 2009 thru March 31, 2010. CMS will post a form the HHAs will use to submit their patient counts via the www.homehealthcahps.org website.
- HHAs certified on or after April 1, 2011 will be excluded from the HHCAHPS reporting requirement for 2012.
- Data collection is limited to
ONLY Medicare and Medicaid patients. You can ask your CAHPS vendor to survey other patients, but CMS only requires Medicare and Medicaid patients to be surveyed. (Original proposed rules also excluded patients 18 or older with less than 2 visits, maternity patients, hospice patients & those who have requested “no publicity status”.)
- HHAs may submit v-codes for the diagnosis listing if the ICD-9 code is unavailable. CMS does caution using a v-codes citing an example where the patients experience for rehabilitation from a knee surgery varies widely from one who is recovering from a stroke. Using a v-code does not necessarily indicate the severity of the illness or condition.
- CMS requests HHAs to target 300 HHCAHPS surveys to be completed annually; which means smaller agencies unable to complete 300 surveys would be surveying all eligible patients.
- Family or friends may help a patient answer the questions as a proxy, but the HHA staff cannot serve as proxy.
- HHAs are urged to send patient lists to the CAHPS vendor within 21 days after the close of any month.
- The survey is produced in English and Spanish only at this time, and no vendor is allowed to produce the survey in any other form. Only CMS can produce additional survey languages, and they are working on a Chinese translation at this time.
- Finally, CMS addressed the cost issue raised with implementing this required survey and their response is “shop around” and report your costs on the cost report.
I hope this helps you to get a better understanding of the CAHPS report. For more detailed answers, visit the
CAHPS website. www.homehealthcahps.org
Posted by Bobby Robertson on Tue, Dec 15, 2009 @ 12:37 PM
Part Three: Creating differences for your agency will set you apart from competitors
In follow up to a post on marketing success a few weeks ago, I posted a very unique method that one of my customers used to find an incredible marketing rep that produced immediate results and grew an agency substantially in a relatively short amount of time. Per your requests for additional examples, another example of success comes to mind that was facilitated by a good friend, Robin Finkelstein. I asked Robin if she would mind writing about this and she kindly agreed. Here you go:
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Great sales people n
eed a message that allows them to communicate to their referral source why they should refer to your agency over another one. All homecare and hospice agencies provide similar services and have "great staff," so why refer to you? Physicians will refer to you because they believe you provide great care with excellent outcomes to their patients. Service and outcomes motivate patients and referral sources and give them a reason to prefer your agency...simple yes, but hard to accomplish.
Take a home health agency in Louisiana who was struggling to grow and give reasons to their referral sources why they should refer to them: Their marketing staff was making frequent sales calls to their referrals sources but was not able to convince the source to refer to them.
Research conducted with competitors and referral sources identified that the agency was not calling on the right target audience and their messages were not motivating to customers. Basically, the agency was perceived to be the same as all the others! A common problem with home health and hospice agencies.
A needs-analysis was conducted with referral sources and the agency's clinical and marketing teams to determine what made them different in the market. A clinical and communications plan was developed that included the following elements:
1. A clinical development plan that included specialized cardiac, pulmonary and low-vision disease management programs
2. New clinical technology was purchased to differentiate their agency with surgeons
3. A psych nurse was hired to develop a dementia program
4. A marketing and communications plan to re-launch their agency
The results were significant: admissions doubled for the agency within a year and the marketing staff was focused on working with the right referral sources, delivering messages that differentiate the agency and motivate them to refer to this agency.
If your agency finds itself in this position it is time to act!
• Review your strengths and weaknesses
• Learn about your competitors and customers
• Develop a plan to improve your services and communicate those differences to your customers
contributor: Robin Finkelstein, Marketing Consultant, Market Insight, Inc robin@marketinsite.org
Read Part One: Howdy Doody Visits
Read Part Two: Finding the Right Home Health Marketer
Posted by Cheri Whalen on Thu, Dec 03, 2009 @ 01:27 PM
Healthcare Reform may be the new word on the streets, but what SHOULD it mean for Home Health and Hospice agencies?
The House and the Senate have passed bills regarding healthcare reform and will be working together to create a unified piece of legislation that will affect providers in the coming months. Ultimately, it still remains there are changes on the horizon that can be viewed as bad and harmful OR can be used to the benefit of the patient and the agency to provide exceptional care. Agencies need to ask themselves: "Do I want to be a healthcare provider that STRIVES for more or one that is merely surviving?"
Changes happening now in the Home Health and Hospice industry are ones many providers embraced before the regulation was provided. Measuring outcomes, comprehensive assessments including fall risk assessments and depression, bereavement services, pain management monitoring ... have long been quantifiable measurements any agency can use to determine the quality of their services and the satisfaction of their patients. Now that these are required to do business with Medicare, some agencies find themselves asking "What do I have to measure?" when the real question should be "What SHOULD I be measuring?".
Looking beyond the le
tter of the regulation will be imperative for agencies who wish to STRIVE for more. Are there areas in your business you feel are lacking? What are you doing to measure the success or failure of those areas? Have you asked those employees responsible for that area what they feel is lacking and provide suggestions for improvement? Is that improvement measurable? Don't just wait for the new Home Health Compare, CAHPS survey, or Hospice Patient Satisfaction scores to tell you where your business needs work.
The software used in your agency today may provide reports you can use to help get started. There might not be one single report that encompasses all your needs, but you may have multiple reports that can be used in conjunction with each other to give a fuller picture. I encourage you to review each of the reports you have available and determine how they can help you measure the success of your efforts!
Posted by Bobby Robertson on Fri, Nov 13, 2009 @ 10:12 AM
Part Two: Finding the Right Home Health Marketer
I had several requests for more information on examples of what other agencies have done to successfully increase referrals. The logical first step on the road to increased referrals is finding the right person to lead the effort. So, I've got a great example of an approach one small start up agency took.
This particular agency became certified seven or eight years ago and spent the first year of their existence making sure everything operationally, and organizationally, was in order. They scored perfectly on their first state survey, which occurred approximately one year after their initial certification. Up to this point, they were content with their very small, and very manageable, agency. Now they had the confidence to grow.
The owners of this agency developed a very nice brochure, bought some logo pens, and decided upon an appropriate salary of $35K/year for their "community liaison". They then put the word out that they were looking for a marketing rep and the resumes' came in promptly. After visiting with several candidates, the co-owners of the agency (both clinicians) mutually agreed upon "Stacy" (this is a fictitious name, in order to protect the identity of this very nice lady).
Stacy was extremely nice and outgoing and everyone in town liked her. Over the course of the next six months, Stacy handed out more brochures and pens than anyone imagined a human could possibly do. Although the activity was there, the referrals didn't come. The owners knew they should fire her, but didn't because they knew Stacy was staying very busy......and she was
really nice. Three months and no increase in referrals later, they let Stacy go.
I called the owners on an unrelated matter shortly after they let Stacy go and asked them if they were growing like they had hoped. I was given the story I just shared with you and recommended them to a marketing friend. He helped them grow their small patient census by a multiple of 5X in less than a year's time.....by simply helping them find a qualified marketing professional.
Here is his suggestion to them:
1. Create a list of the top referral sources in the area (physicians, social workers at hospitals, etc)
2. Create a contest to award the top healthcare sales professional in the area with recognition and a prize (free trip to Mexico..or something similar)
3. Call around to each of the top referral sources to inform them of the award and tell them they've been chosen to nominate three individuals in order of which ones they worked with the most frequently.
4. Put together a compensation package that would attract real healthcare marketing professionals ($35K base won't do it in this case)
5. Call the reps that were mentioned by multiple referral sources and invite them to interview for an opportunity marketing for your agency.
6. Make a hire.
7. Educate them on health care referral laws (anti-kickback, etc.) and turn them loose.
I know this is sneaky but following these steps, they found the most successful healthcare marketing professional in their area. I love this story!!
See Part one: Howdy Doody visits
Posted by Bobby Robertson on Tue, Nov 03, 2009 @ 11:55 AM
Part one: Howdy Doody Visits
Over the years, I've worked with literally hundreds of home health agencies, and I'm very fortunate to call many of them my friends. I doubt most of them remember our first meeting, but in most every case, our initial conversations end up with me asking "How do you get (or plan to get) patient referrals?"
Shockingly, the answer I get most often is "We have a marketing person and we make sure that she/he visits all of the physicians in our area and leaves them our brochure so that they think of us when they have a patient that needs home care." I cringe when I hear this and immediately think.....another "Howdy Doody" marketing program.
I refer to these marketing efforts as "Howdy Doody" because these agencies typically have hired someone to drive around town all day, stop in Physician offices, drop off a brochure, and say "Hi" or "How do you do?" (Howdy Doody). This is not good marketing and it is a waste of time!
Marketing should be done by a true marketing professional, not someone that would take a minimal annual salary set aside as an experiment. Someone who will develop a well thought out and measurable strategy/plan to differentiate your agency and ultimately get referrals. This professional can set your agency up as a resource to the Physician, versus just another "Howdy Doody" agency, and the referrals will come.
I love to visit with agencies about the proper way to attract, hire, measure and compensate marketing professionals that can get these results. It is not difficult to grow your business, if you take the growth of your business seriously.
If anyone is interested, I'll write about some of the most successful marketing programs I've seen used by agencies. Is anyone interested?
Read Part two: Finding the Right Home Health Marketer