2026 Annual Payment Update

Data collection for the 2026 APU begins with the April 2024 sample month. Home Health Agencies who are not currently participating in the HHCAHPS Survey and served 60 or more eligible patients in the previous year should register as soon as possible on the HHCAHPS website here.

For additional information on getting started with HHCAHPS, please review the Getting Started document. If you have any questions, contact the HHCAHPS Survey Coordination Team at hhcahps@rti.org or 866-354-0985.

CAHPS Hospice Updates

Updated information has been posted on the CAHPS Hospice website under What’s New including:

• CAHPS Hospice Survey response rate for the Q3 2021 – Q2 2023 public reporting period is 29%
• Case-Mix Adjustment Methods
  • How to approximate
  • Adjustors and means
• CAHPS Hospice Survey State Scores
• CAHPS Hospice Survey National Percentiles

Public Reporting Refresh

The February 2024 public reporting refresh has been completed on Care Compare to display results from Q2 2021 – Q1 2023. For additional information about CAHPS Hospice public reporting, please visit the CAHPS Hospice Survey website.

Race Question Update

Beginning with the Spring 2024 fielding period, response options have been reordered so they are listed in alphabetical order. No action is
required on the part of NRC Health partners – surveys will automatically be updated.

Mode Experiment

A mode experiment was conducted testing a shortened version of the ICH CAHPS Survey and a web mode. Results from the survey supported the shortened survey, reducing patient burden. Results of the web mode experiment were unclear because email addresses were not included in an adequate number of patient records.

Results of the experiment have been analyzed and shared with a Technical Expert Panel and the CAHPS Consortium. Next steps include additional analysis and gaining necessary approvals. A timeline for survey changes has not been announced.

2023 Annual Quality Reports

CMS will provide PY2023 Annual Quality Reports in July 2024. Reports will be available on the 4i portal. The Reports will include information on all ACO REACH quality measures in 2023, including CAHPS. The CAHPS portion of the Annual Quality Report will contain the ACO’s de-identified individual survey results on all domains and all questions, as well as results at the overall ACO REACH CAHPS level.