Home Health & Hospice Week

Take this opportunity for a sneak peek at the major OASIS changes ahead. The latest OASIS C form might not have been quite ready for the spotlight, but it still gives home health agencies plenty of direction on what the corrected final form will look like. A big change in the OASIS form that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services proposed in November, which HHAs didn't like, was in M1038, notes Mary St. Pierre with the National Association for Home Care & Hospice. In the November version, the item stated, "Guidelines for Physician Notification: Does the physician-ordered plan of care establish parameters (limits) for physician notification of changes in vital signs or other clinical findings?" It included "yes" or "no" responses. The item "implies that parameters are required in the plan of care for all changes in vital signs and clinical findings that a patient might experience,"NAHC said in [...]