GetHomeCare.com
focuses on connecting consumers to quality home care organizations
and information by locating and comparing performance of
Medicare-certified home care agencies in the United States.
Click here for all National GetHomeCare.com™ Top Performers
GetHomeCare.com focuses on connecting consumers to quality home care organizations and information by locating and comparing performance of Medicare-certified home care agencies in the United States.
Medicare-certified home care agencies are required to collect and submit standardized patient data to CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid) based on OASIS (Outcome and Assessment Information Set) which includes 10 quality measures. We have reviewed this publicly available information, analyzed it, applied performance weightings, and created the GetHomeCare.com Top Performer Award in order to identify and recognize top performing agencies. This weighted ranking model closely mirrors how agencies are being evaluated within CMS's evaluation of a new Pay for Performance model for Home Care Agencies.
GetHomecare.com™ Top Performers are the select agencies who have finished in the top 20 percent nationally based on our proprietary ranking method.
The following is a list of these 10 quality measures along with GetHomeCare.com's performance weighting model:
Ambulation
Percentage of patients who get better at walking or moving around (10 Points)
Percentage of patients who get better at getting in and out of bed (10 Points)
Percentage of patients who have less pain when moving around (10 Points)
Activities of Daily Living
Percentage of patients whose bladder control improves (10 Points)
Percentage of patients who get better at bathing (10 Points)
Percentage of patients who get better at taking their medicines correctly (by mouth) (10 Points)
Percentage of patients who are short of breath less often (0 Points)
Discharge Success
Percentage of patients who stay at home after an episode of home health care ends (0 Points)
Medical Emergencies
Percentage of patients who had to be admitted to the hospital (25 Points)
Percentage of patients who need urgent, unplanned medical care (15 Points)
Note: Medical Emergency performance was weighted higher based on CMS's focus on reducing avoidable emergent care.
Eligibility:
1. Qualifying Medicare-certified agencies must have reported on at least 6 of the 8 quality measure with point values, including both of the Medical Emergency quality measures.
2. Qualifying Medicare-certified agencies must have a large enough patient volume to be included in CMS data. CMS does not include data from smaller agencies so as to improve the relevancy of overall data.
3. Top Performers are based on the last 12 months of performance data available data from CMS, which was last updated on September 24, 2007 and includes episodes between April, 2006 - March, 2006. Top Performers will be updated when new CMS updates are made available.
Publicity Guidelines:
1. Agencies receiving GetHomeCare.com Top Performer recognition may use the Top Performer logo on their website, electronic communications, and press release. Because this is a quarterly award, please include a link back to GetHomeCare.com to ensure agency is a current Top Performer.
2. Sample Press Releases and GetHomeCare.com Top Performer Award Graphics are available to help agencies publicize their accomplishment in our Publicity Center
