Documentation Required for Agencies Submitting 0-Eligible Files
folder_openChanges to Protocols and Guidelines, Information for Home Health Agenciescalendar_todayPosted March 19, 2013
The purpose of this announcement is to provide clarification about the documentation HHAs are required to submit to vendors if they do not have any eligible sample patients in a given month. Vendors are still required to submit 0-eligible files to the Data Center for these situations, but this announcement clarifies the documentation that vendors should expect to receive from their HHA clients. As per the HHCAHPS Protocols and Guidelines Manual, "HHAs administering the HHCAHPS Survey must submit a monthly patient information file to its contracted HHCAHPS Survey vendor each month, even though the HHA may not have served any patients eligible for the survey during the sample month." (p. 30, v. 5.0)
To provide an audit trail for CMS and the HHCAHPS Coordination Team, effective immediately, HHCAHPS survey vendors are required to obtain from any HHAs that do not have eligible patients in a given sample month either:
- A 0-eligible file; meaning, a file with information in the Header Record stating that the number of eligible patients is 0; or
- An email message from the HHA, dated by the 21st day of the month following the sample month, stating that the HHA does not have any eligible patients for that particular month. (HHAs that work with software vendors may want to have their software vendor send them an email message confirming that there are no eligible patients for that month, which the HHA can then forward to their HHCAHPS survey vendor).
It is not acceptable for HHAs to convey this information via telephone to their HHCAHPS survey vendor, even if the survey vendor documents the phone conversation.
If neither of the two above conditions are met, meaning that the vendor does not receive either a file (by the agreed upon date) or an email message (by the 21st day of the month following the sample month) stating that the HHA has no eligible patients, vendors should not submit a 0-eligible file to the Data Center on behalf of that HHA. Instead, the vendor should submit a DNR to the Coordination Team for that month explaining that no file was received.
Please contact the HHCAHPS Survey Coordination Team via e-mail at hhcahps@rti.org or call toll-free at (866) 354-0985 for further assistance.