It is report season again and although they are necessary for compliance, the report preparation process itself is quite tedious. For home health agencies and hospices based in California, a report that’s coming due is the Annual Utilization Report which provides a detailed view on your agency’s utilization, service capacity, visits, patient characteristics, and revenues and expenditures.
Data Soft Logic as your Intelligent Care Partner wants to guide you through this year’s submission. To aid you, we have laid out the following reminders which might be useful in preparing the Annual Utilization Report.
This is probably the most important reminder of all. The Annual Utilization Report is submitted to the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Department (OSHPD) on every 15th day of March. If March 15 falls on a weekend or a holiday, the report is due on the succeeding working day. For this year however, March 15 falls on a Monday. For those agencies which closed or ended operations within 2020, their reports must be filed 14 days from the date of notification receipt from OSHPD.
The System for Integrated Electronic Reporting and Auditing or the SIERA is a report collection enterprise system where you can view, revise, and submit your utilization information. Since 2018, Annual Utilization Reports have been exclusively submitted through the SIERA. Agencies are strongly discouraged to submit hardcopies of their reports to OSHPD unless they are granted written permission to submit it in a different format other than the electronic one.
In cases wherein there has been a change in licensure or ownership, the former licensee should submit a report that covers the period from January 1 until the licensure end date. The new licensee shall then submit a report that covers the period from the licensure effective date until December 31. However, OSHPD strongly encourages agencies to submit a consolidated 12-month report, provided that the former and current licensees agree on who will be responsible for the submission. On the other hand, agencies which opened, closed, or were suspended in the previous calendar year should file a report which covers their licensure effective date until December 31, or January 1 until their closure date.
The report has a total of 11 pages. Pages 1 to 4 are to be completed by home health agencies while pages 1 and 5 through 11 are for hospices. If your agency offers both home health and hospice care, you will need to complete all pages based on these allocations.
You should enter all amounts in whole numbers with financial data rounded off to the nearest dollar. Use of decimals, dollar signs, commas, spaces, and other special characters are not allowed.
SIERA will ask you to certify the report once you are ready to submit it. A Certify Report page will pop up and you will need to agree with the terms by clicking the “Certify” button. It is crucial however that all supplied information is accurate, complete, and truthful to the best of your knowledge prior to certifying. Otherwise, you will be committing perjury and will have to bear the penalties.
Lastly, it is important that you submit the Annual Utilization Report on or before the deadline. Failure to do so will result in the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) suspending your license until you complete and file the report with OSHPD.
Data Soft Logic will continue to be the software on your side especially during survey, audit, and report seasons. With our intelligent, innovative, and compliance-augmenting solutions, Home Health Centre and Hospice Centre, you can have ready access to relevant data for your report preparation. To know more about how we can make it easy for you, schedule a demo with us now.
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