Expert Insights and Announcements
Home Health,In the Press

CY 2027 Home Health Proposed Rule: What's Real, What's Just an Idea, and What It Means for Your Quality Programs

For home health agencies, the CY 2027 Home Health Proposed Rule (CMS-1844-P) is, first and foremost, a quality-program story. Yes, it sets next year's payment rates, and we'll cover that up front because you'll want the headline number. But the developments most likely to shape how you plan sit in the quality reporting sections: what CMS is confirming for the Home Health Quality Reporting Program (HH QRP) and the Expanded Home Health Value-Based Purchasing (HHVBP) model, and how the agency is signaling it may eventually connect the two.

Decoding the SSVI: What CMS's New Hospice Scorecard Reveals About Agency Performance

In the FY 2027 Hospice Proposed Rule (CMS-1851-P), CMS introduced the Service and Spending Variation Index (SSVI) — a composite scoring tool that flags hospice agencies whose patterns of care and Medicare spending diverge meaningfully from peer norms. CMS released an accompanying agency-level dataset covering 6,642 hospices in FY2025 and 6,735 hospices in FY2024, offering the most granular view of variation across the hospice benefit that CMS has published to date.

HHVBP Scores are Changing Again

With the start of CY 2026, Home Health Agencies (HHAs) will again need to recalibrate how they look at their Home Health Value-Based Purchasing (HHVBP) Total Performance Scores (TPS). Understanding these changes is important since your opportunity for HHVBP bonuses will depend on how your scores compare to HHAs in your cohort. As we will discuss, whenever CMS changes the outcome measure sets, measure weights and/or baseline data, your current TPS scores are likely to change.

Initial Medicare FFS Telehealth Insights

On July 1st, 2023 CMS began requiring home health agencies to document their utilization of telehealth services on their Medicare Fee-For-Service (FFS) claims. As finalized in the CY 2023 Home Health Payment System Rate Update, agencies are responsible to identify one of three services they provide using new Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS) codes. These codes are added as a separate visit line on the claim based on the date each service is provided. CMS notes in the rule that these services are for reporting only, since CMS does not reimburse for these services. The HCPCS codes are: