Home Health & Hospice Week

Do you know the ropes of the new vaccine items?

The flu vaccine items aren’t the only inoculation questions to get a welcome makeover for the OASIS-C1/ICD-9. You’ll also see changes to the pneumonia vaccine items that make them clearer and easier to answer.

Old item M1050 — Pneumococcal Vaccine used to ask whether the patient received the pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine from your agency during the current episode of care. Newly renumbered item M1051— Pneumococcal Vaccine is streamlined to ask whether the patient has ever received the pneumococcal vaccine, said Linda Krulish of Redmond, Wash.-based OASIS Answers during the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services OASIS-C1 implementation webinar.

The newly revamped item removes the phrasing “during this episode of care” and “from your agency” as well as changing “pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine” to “pneumococcal vaccine,” said OASIS expert Sharon Litwin with 5 Star Consultants in Camdenton, Mo.

When you answer “0 — No” to M1051, you’re directed on to renumbered item M1056 — Reason Pneumococcal Vaccine not received. Your options for M1056 are:

1 — Offered and declined
2 — Assessed and determined to have medical contraindication(s)
3 — Not indicated; patient does not meet age/condition guidelines for Pneumococcal Vaccine
4 — None of the above

The revised item now documents the reason the patient never received the pneumococcal vaccine, Litwin said during the recent Eli-sponsored audioconference OASIS-C1/ICD-9: Are You Ready? The changes help to clear up the item and its intent, Litwin said.

Do this: It is important that agency staff work to get the flu vaccine and the pneumococcal vaccine for your patients, regardless of whether your agency actually administers the vaccine, says OASIS expert Lisa Selman-Holman of Selman-Holman & Associates and CoDR — Coding Done Right in Denton, Texas. Two prevention process measures are based on these items —“Staff Make Sure Patient Gets Flu Shot” and “Staff Make Sure Patient Has Had Pneumonia Shot.” 

Note: For more information on OASIS accuracy, subscribe to Eli’s Home Health Coding and OASIS Expert at www.aapc.com/codes/coding-newsletters/my-homeoasis-expert-alert.