As part of the DHHS Transparency
Initiative on Quality Reporting, CMS plans to implement a process
to measure and publicly report patients' experiences with home
health care they receive from Medicare-certified home health
agencies through the data collection effort described in this
request: the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and
Systems (CAHPS) Home Health Care Survey. The Home Health Care CAHPS
Survey, which was developed and tested by the Agency for Healthcare
Research and Quality (AHRQ) and is part of the family of CAHPS
surveys, is a standardized survey for home health patients to
assess their home health care providers and the quality of the home
health care they receive. Prior to the Home Health Care CAHPS
survey, there was no national standard for collecting data about
home health care patients' experience with their home health care.
This is a revision to the original PRA package which covered the
voluntary implementation of the survey among Medicare-certified
agencies and a randomized mode experiment to test the impact of
different modes of data collection on survey responses. This is a
revised PRA package because it now includes the burden to the home
health agencies (HHAs) to contract with an approved HHCAHPS survey
vendor to administer the HHCAHPS survey on their behalf.
US Code:
42
USC 301 Name of Law: US Public Health Service Act
The HHAs have some burden in
the HHCAHPS that was NOT included in the original (new) PRA
collection package that was approved by OMB 7-18-09. The HHAs must
do the following in regard to HHCAHPS: (1) Contract with an
approved HHCAHPS survey vendor to administer the HHCAHPS survey and
to submit the HHCAHPS survey data to the Data Center on the HHAs'
behalf; (2) Register for credentials to access the private secure
links on the HHCAHPS website, www.homehealthcahps.org; (3) When
registering for credentials to access the private links on
www.homehealthcahps.org, the system will automatically generate a
customized Consent Form for the HHAs. Each HHA must print this
Consent Form and mail the completed signed and notarized Consent
Form to the HHCAHPS Coordination Team; (4) Authorize an HHCAHPS
survey vendor to collect and submit the HHCAHPS survey data to the
Data Center; (5) Stay informed about HHCAHPS by checking
www.homehealthcahps.org at least twice a week; (6) Prepare a
monthly patient information file containing information that the
survey vendor needs for sampling and fielding the survey; and (7)
Submit the monthly patient information file to the survey vendor by
the date specified or agreed to by your contracted survey
vendor.
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that
the collection of information encompassed by this request complies
with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR
1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding
the proposed collection of information, that the certification
covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a
benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control
number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of
these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked
and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.