Physical therapists, occupational therapists and speech-language pathologists who do not satisfactorily report quality measure data to meet the 2015 Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) requirements will be subject to a negative PQRS payment adjustment on all Medicare Part B physician fee schedule services for 2017. The negative payment adjustment will be 2%. Deadline for submission of the quality measure data is 8:00pm ET on the last date listed below dependent upon how you are reporting the data: Electronic Health Record direct or data submission vendor (QRDA I or III) – January 1 through February 29, 2016 Qualified clinical data registries

On January 28, 2016, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the first Home Health Care Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HHCAHPS) Survey star ratings that evaluate patients’ experiences with home health agencies. HHCAHPS star ratings provide a snapshot of the 4 measures of patient experience of care on Home Health Compare. In addition, the HHCAHPS summary star rating combines all 4 HHCAHPS star ratings into a single, comprehensive metric. To access the Home Health Star Ratings, click HERE.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has released the Patient Assessment Instrument (PAI) Training Manual V1.4. Section 4 provides updates to Sections GG, J, and O that will be required beginning October 1, 2016. To access the training manual, click HERE and scroll down to the Downloads Section.