Home Health Engagement
Human-Centered Design (HCD) is the process CMS uses to understand the experiences of people who interact with our programs and services. Instead of making decisions based only on what we think people need, we directly involve clinicians, patients, third-party vendors, federal partners, and CMS employees to collaboratively understand the context of their work and engagement with CMS. Through this collaborative approach, CMS gathers insights that directly shape our policies and programs. This ensures CMS services aren’t just technically correct but genuinely helpful in people’s everyday lives.
In late 2018, CMS launched the Home Health Human-Centered Design Customer Engagement to explore the home health care experience from the viewpoints of both beneficiaries and home health agencies. Through interviews and onsite visits, CMS gathered insights directly from a variety of external customers—including agency administrators, frontline staff, clinicians, beneficiaries, and their support networks—to better understand their lived experiences with home health services.
As a product of our research, we co-created the “Navigating the Home Health Maze” illustration with our external customers to represent their perspective and highlight the challenges they may encounter when navigating regulations and requirements.
The Home Health Customer Engagement supports CMS’ commitment to advancing person-centered care and reducing administrative burden, a priority for CMS.
Navigating the Home Health Maze
"Navigating the Home Health Maze" depicts the complex and often overwhelming journey of home health agencies (HHAs) and clients as they navigate care delivery, compliance, and payment requirements. Arrows trace the winding paths of both HHAs and clients through a maze of administrative, clinical, and regulatory challenges — such as staffing shortages, burdensome paperwork, and payer coordination issues.
Page Last Modified:
07/31/2025 08:18 AM