Home Health, Hospice & DME Open Door Forums Update

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

Special Open Door Forum:

Adding Star Ratings to the Home Health Compare Website

Thursday, February 5, 2015

1:30pm – 3:00pm Eastern Time

Conference Call Only

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service will host a second Special Open Door Forum (SODF) call to allow consumers, home health agencies (HHAs), and other interested parties to give additional input and feedback on the planned addition of star ratings to Medicare.gov’s Home Health Compare (HHC) web site.

This call follows up on our previous call[1] on this topic and will include:

-        a summary of the comments received on the material presented at the earlier call and on other aspects of the methodology,

-        a presentation of our revised methodology, and

-        plans for next steps.

After the presentation, the phones will be opened for comments and questions. A link to the materials for this SODF, including a slide deck, a summary of the revised proposed HHC star rating methodology, and an updated "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQ) document will be available soon on the Home Health Quality Initiative Spotlight page at http://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Quality-Initiatives-Patient-Assessment-Instruments/HomeHealthQualityInits/HHQISpotlight.html

Comments about the star ratings system can be submitted by email after the call to the following address:HHC_Star_Ratings_Helpdesk@cms.hhs.gov

Special Open Door Forum Participation Instructions:

Participant Dial-In Number: 1-800-837-1935

Conference ID #: 73412220

Note: TTY Communications Relay Services are available for the Hearing Impaired. For TTY services dial 7-1-1 or 1-800-855-2880. A Relay Communications Assistant will help.

After the call, transcript and audio recording of this SODF will be posted to the Special Open Door Forum website at http://www.cms.gov/Outreach-and-Education/Outreach/OpenDoorForums/ODFSpecialODF.html

For automatic emails of Open Door Forum schedule updates (E-Mailing list subscriptions) and to view Frequently Asked Questions please visit our website at http://www.cms.gov/opendoorforums/

Thank you for your interest in CMS Open Door Forums.

---

[1] A transcript and audio recording of the previous Home Health Star Ratings SODF are available at:http://www.cms.gov/Outreach-and-Education/Outreach/OpenDoorForums/Downloads/12172014SODFTranscript.zip