Home Health & Hospice Week

Will CMS drop some of the proposed items this time around?

Unless Medicare makes changes to its OASIS-E instrument in the 2022 final rule, you can expect to see these new items in the updated assessment instrument that will hit in January 2023:

• Brief Interview for Mental Status (BIMS) — OASIS items C0100, C0200, C0300, C0400, C0500.
• Assessment of Cognitive Function (CAM) — C1310 A-D.
• Patient Health Questionnaire–2 to 9 (PHQ–2 to 9) — C0150 A-H, C0160.
• Cancer Treatments — O0110 A-J, O (each lettered section with multiple sub-elements).
• Nutritional Approaches — K0520 A-D.
• High-Risk Drug Classes — N0415 A, E-F, H-J.
• Medical Conditions and Comorbidities — J0510, J0520, J0530.
• Impairments — B0200, B1000.
• Social Determinants of Health (race, ethnicity, preferred language, interpreter services, health literacy, transportation, and social isolation) — A1005, A1010, A1110, A1250, B1300, D0700.

Whether the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will include all these items, or just the SDOH elements, in the revised OASIS-E remains to be seen. Home health agencies may find answers in the 2022 home health final payment rule due any day, or in the updated tool CMS plans to release in early 2022.

Note: The 31-page draft OASIS-E instrument is at www.cms.gov/files/document/draft-oasis-e-all-items03122020.pdf.