Since 2016, Arbor Research has evaluated the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Home Health Value-Based Purchasing (HHVBP) Model, which is designed to improve the quality and efficiency of delivery of home health care services to Medicare beneficiaries. Our multiyear analyses found improvement in performance of home health agencies and quality of care for patients, coupled with savings to Medicare, and led to CMS’s decision in November 2021 to expand the model nationwide in 2023.
The HHVBP Model provides financial incentives to home health agencies for quality improvement based on their performance relative to other agencies in their state. These rates are combined into a Total Performance Score (TPS), which CMS uses to determine a Medicare payment adjustment. Under the original HHVBP Model, payment adjustments to agencies increased annually, from up to ±3% in 2018 to up to ±7% in 2021, the last year of the Model.
During the first five years of the original HHVBP Model, in addition to improvements in quality of care, the HHVBP Model saved $949.2 million for Medicare, a 1.6% decline relative to the 41 non-HHVBP states.
“We are proud to support CMS in their mission to make home health care more efficient and improve patient care,” says Alyssa Pozniak, Senior Research Scientist and the project’s director. “We’ve leveraged our team’s expertise to make complex analyses understandable to policymakers and help shape policy that has led to better health outcomes.”