CMS NEWS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 18, 2015

Contact: CMS Media Relations

Medicare Fee-for-Service utilization and payment data available for Home Health Agencies Data serves as comprehensive resource for information on home health agencies costs and services

As part of our efforts to improve care delivery, payments to providers, and the sharing and utilization of information, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) today released a public data set that provides information on services provided to Medicare beneficiaries by home health agencies. The Home Health Agency Utilization and Payment Public Use File (Home Health Agency PUF) contains information on utilization, payments, and submitted charges organized by provider, state and home health resource group.

“The Home Health Agency data made available today focuses on our initiative of achieving better care, smarter spending, and healthier people throughout our health care system, “said CMS Administrator Andrew Slavitt. “CMS has been a pioneer in greater data transparency and views it as key to a more effectively functioning health care system where information flows more freely.”

The Home Health Agency PUF was created from CMS administrative claims data for Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in the fee-for-service program available from the CMS Chronic Condition Data Warehouse (www.ccwdata.org). The data covers calendar year 2013 and is based on home health agency Part A institutional claims. These new data include information on 11,062 home health agencies, over 6 million claims, and over $18 billion in Medicare payments for 2013. The data set does not contain any individually identifiable information about Medicare beneficiaries.

To view a fact sheet on the Home Health Agency data set, visit:

http://cms.gov/Newsroom/MediaReleaseDatabase/Fact-sheets/2015-Fact-sheets-items/2015-12-18.html.

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