Level-setting your home health organization for HHVBP
Home Health Value-Based Purchasing is just a few months away! Here at WellSky, we’re presenting a free, 8-week educational series called Countdown to Value-Based Purchasing: 8 steps toward success in 2022. This video and podcast series is designed to support home health agencies as they prepare for HHVBP, expected to go into effect on January 1, 2022. This week we’re focusing on level-setting your organization and the importance of understanding your performance data to successfully prepare for HHVBP. Read on to learn more!
Understanding your performance
Agency leadership must gain a clear understanding of the agency’s performance data, including how it compares to the local competition and where it falls in your baseline year. Understanding these performance factors is key to allocating the right resources to maximize overall performance. Ask yourself these questions:
- Have you assessed your 2019 baseline year data for the specific measures used within HHVBP calculations?
- Have you compared your outcomes on a national scale?
- Have you identified where your performance fell short and where it excelled?
Analyzing current data to guide QAPI efforts
There is a vital step in aligning your QAPI efforts to set you up for success under HHVBP in your first performance year: analyzing your current data to understand where you sit today relative to your baseline outcomes and any cause and effect that needs to be addressed. Addressing all measures where you are falling short as well as continuing to improve in the areas where you are thriving puts a lot on your QAPI plate. Being able to strategically prioritize your available resources will ultimately give you the best return on lifting your Total Performance Score and reaping the benefits in your first payment year.
Positioning HHVBP for your team
Ensuring your performance improvement plans are aligned with the right people using the right tools is key in effecting positive change, and positioning HHVBP in the right way for your team is particularly important. It starts at the top. Agency leadership must set clear expectations of performance, providing contextual drivers to make sense of what is expected and why. It’s important to communicate your organization’s commitment to improving the effectiveness of patient care. In addition to providing your team with the right tools to understand and improve performance, we recommend providing targeted education for key stakeholders to empower them with the information they need, framing HHVBP as a progression in payment guidelines intended to improve outcomes for patients served.
Next steps
To learn more about how to level-set your agency in preparation for HHVBP, visit wellsky.com/HHVBP and watch this week’s episode.