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
We are not proposing any
program changes. The number of participating HHAs varies from year
to year which carries over to the number of completed surveys. In
this iteration we are adjusting the number of HHAs based on April
2015 – March 2016 data. We are also changing our estimated time per
response. We increase the time based on what home health agencies
have reported to CMS as the amount of time that it takes them to
put together the monthly file. Typically, it is done electronically
and by the agencies’ administrative vendors that run the patient
lists for many purposes in the daily operational needs of their
agencies.
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.