Porchlight VNA/Home Care Earns Five-star Rating by CMS

LEE — Porchlight VNA/Home Care has been awarded a five-star rating by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Porchlight is the only Western Mass. agency given this elite status by the federal government.
Similar to hotel or restaurant ratings, agencies are given a score of one to five stars, with one being the lowest ranking and five being the highest. Most agencies nationwide received ratings of three or three and a half stars. As a five-star agency, Porchlight performed better than 99.1{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5} of its peers.
The new star ratings were rolled out in July as the standard by which all Medicare-certified home-healthcare companies nationwide will be ranked. Star ratings can be found at the medicare.gov website under ‘Home Health Compare,’ along with detailed information on the measures used to determine the ratings.
Star ratings are a reflection of the quality of patient care, safety measures, and outcomes as determined by CMS standards. One such measured outcome is the improvement in a patient’s ability to perform activities of daily living, such as walking independently. A low rate of patient hospitalization or readmissions is also a key measure of performance for the CMS ratings.