Announcement About the Number of Skilled Visits in the Lookback Period
folder_openChanges to Protocols and Guidelines, Information for Home Health Agenciescalendar_todayPosted November 17, 2011
The Coordination Team wishes to remind HHCAHPS Survey vendors that their home health agency (HHA) clients must provide the number of visits in the lookback period for each patient, and the vendor should use that number to determine whether the patient meets the minimum number of visits required for survey eligibility. The vendor must also report the number of visits in the lookback period provided by the HHA as the value in the Lookback Period Visit variable <lb-visits> on the XML data file.
It has come to our attention that some HHCAHPS Survey vendors are calculating the total number of visits in the lookback period by adding the number of skilled visits the patient had in the current sample month to the number of visits reported for the patient in the preceding sample month. Effective immediately, HHCAHPS Survey vendors must use the total number of skilled visits reported by the HHA on the monthly patient information file when determining whether the patient is eligible for the survey.
As indicated in an e-mail message sent to HHCAHPS Survey vendors on May 27, 2011, if an HHA does not or cannot provide all of the information required to determine whether a patient is eligible for the survey, the vendor should consider the patient as eligible and include the patient on the sample frame. If the information required to determine eligibility is missing on the monthly patient information file, the vendor should contact the HHA to obtain the missing information. If the HHA cannot provide that information or does not provide it in time for sampling to be conducted, the vendor should consider the patient eligible, include information about him or her on the sample frame, and, if the patient is sampled, include that patient in the survey.
Please contact the HHCAHPS Coordination Team at hhcahps@rti.org if you have any questions about this announcement.