CORDELE — CareSouth, of Crisp Regional Health Services, on Thursday announced that it has been named a Top Agency of the 2017 HomeCare Elite®, a recognition of the top-performing home health agencies in the United States. For 12 years, HomeCare Elite has annually identified the top 25 percent of Medicare-certified agencies and highlighted the top 100 and top 500 agencies overall.

The ranking is developed by ABILITY® Network, a leading information technology company helping providers and payers simplify the administrative and clinical complexities of healthcare; and sponsored by DecisionHealth, publisher of Home Health Line and the Complete Home Health ICD-10-CM Diagnosis Coding Manual.

“The team at CareSouth has demonstrated an impressive ability to deliver great patient care,” said Christine Lang, senior director for ABILITY Network. “This is due to the skill and dedication of their clinical professionals, as well as the proficiency and efforts of their quality team tracking, measuring and interpreting the data that supports the delivery of care. Together, they have earned this recognition as one of the top home care agencies in the country.”

“High quality care is what agencies strive for and what patients expect, and we provide that at our organization,” said Jimmie Smith, Director at CareSouth.

“Congratulations to those leading agencies that earned a spot on HomeCare Elite,” said Marci Heydt, senior content manager for DecisionHealth. “CareSouth and its peers have worked hard to improve quality outcomes while maintaining solid profit margins, which is increasingly difficult as home health agencies faced increased regulatory burdens each year.”

HomeCare Elite agencies are determined by an analysis of performance measures in quality outcomes, best practices implementation, patient experience (HHCAHPS), quality improvement and consistency, and financial health. In order to be considered, an agency must be Medicare-certified and have data for at least three outcomes in Home Health Compare. Out of 9,064 agencies considered, 2,268 are recognized on the 2017 HomeCare Elite winners list overall.