We are now in the second quarter of 2010. Are you ready for HH CAHPS? After you select an approved HH CAHPS Survey vendor and identify which patients should receive the survey, you need to create the file containing the patients' information so you can submit the data to your vendor by the October 2010 deadline. Today, Kinnser announced a new HH CAHPS data export feature to significantly reduce the time spent on a monthly basis collecting data for the Health Care Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HH CAHPS) Survey. Kinnser-subscribing agencies can select from one of three leading HH CAHPS vendors – Fazzi Associates, Inc., Press Ganey Associates, Inc. or Strategic Healthcare Programs (SHP) – to easily create, save and export monthly HH CAHPS Survey data in each vendor's specified format.

"The survey vendor takes on the major HH CAHPS responsibilities," said Gina Mazza RN, BSN, Total Performance Director at Fazzi Associates. "The most difficult process for agencies is creating the patient file."

HH CAHPS vendors have no way of creating the data file for an agency. Without software, your organization has to manually create a list of patients served, all according to the specifications and file format required to transmit the data to the HH CAHPS vendor. If you are a paper-based home health agency, this process may be a nightmare because, depending on your census, it will cost a significant amount of time to gather and compile this data to send to your vendor in time for the initial deadline and subsequent mandatory deadlines each month.

"It is a very resource intensive process for agencies that have to create their own file," said Ms. Mazza. "This means you have a significant project that has to be done right. In addition, the patient's file initiates the survey process. Every HH CAHPS vendor has to look, at least, at a three-month list of patients served to determine the sampling for each month. We will do anything we can to get an agency up and running as soon as possible, but we cannot put that file together."

Medicare requires all agencies to collect and submit data for the Health Care Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HH CAHPS) Survey by October 2010. If you work for a paper-based agency and you have not started the process, we recommend that you start collecting patient data with the help of an approved HH CAHPS vendor as soon as possible to meet the deadline.

"Agencies that are working with software companies have the agency's biggest responsibility in HH CAHPS taken care of, making this a much smoother process," said Ms. Mazza. "If I worked at an agency, it would be a big relief."

Contact Kinnser to learn more about how Agency Manager can make your HH CAHPS process easier.