NORWICH — Hospice and Palliative Care of Chenango County has been named a 2022 Hospice Honors recipient by Healthcarefirst, a leading provider of billing and coding services, CAHPS surveys, and advanced analytics. Hospice Honors is a prestigious program that recognizes hospices providing the highest level of quality as measured from the caregiver’s point of view.

“Hospice Honors recipients are industry leaders in providing quality care and constantly

seeking ways to improve,” said Ronda Howard, Vice President Revenue Cycle and CAHPS

at Healthcarefirst. “We are honored to be aligned with such high performing agencies like

Hospice and Palliative Care of Chenango County and we congratulate them on their success.”

Award criteria were based on Hospice CAHPS survey results for an evaluation period of October 2020 through September 2021. Award recipients were identified by evaluating performance on a set of 24 quality indicator measures. Performance scores were aggregated from all completed surveys and were compared on a question by-question basis to a National Performance Score calculated from all hospices contained in the Healthcarefirst’s Hospice CAHPS database.

Hospice Honors recipients include those hospices scoring above the Healthcarefirst National Performance Score on 20 of the evaluated questions. Healthcarefirst holds a special recognition, Hospice Honors Elite, to honor hospices scoring above the Healthcarefirst National Performance Score on all 24 of the evaluated questions.

Visit Healthcarefirst’s website at www.healthcarefirst.com to learn more about Hospice CAHPS survey program as well as the Hospice Honors awards.

Hospice of Chenango County Executive Director Kendall Drexler credits the dedication of

the staff of hospice for achieving Hospice Honors.

Drexler said, “during this time frame, we were struggling with being short staffed due to the pandemic and staff outages due to illness. The fact that the staff were able to deliver this level of care during such a trying time is a true testament to the dedication of the staff at Hospice and Palliative Care of Chenango County, and to our organization’s mission.”

Hospice and Palliative Care of Chenango County is a home based healthcare organization providing high quality end of life care to patients and families in Chenango County with terminal illness.

Hospice services are covered by Medicare, Medicaid, and most private insurance companies, and include care management, pain and symptom management, durable medical equipment, medications and supplies, and psychosocial support.

Hospice and Palliative Care of Chenango County also offers Complimentary Gief Services to anyone working through a loss in Chenango County.

Healthcarefirst enables home health and hospice providers to streamline and optimize their business through CAHPS surveys, billing, coding, and OASIS review, and advanced analytics services to increase business efficiencies, simplify CMS compliance, expedite reimbursement, and improve patient care.

Healthcarefirst is a wholly owned subsidiary of ResMed (NYSE: RMD, ASX: RMD). Visit

healthcarefirst.com or follow @HEALTHCAREfirst on LinkedIn, Twitter, and FaceBook.

-Information provided by Hospice and Palliative Care of Chenango County