Home Health & Hospice Week

In the newest version of the form released this month, “the large majority of changes are related to formatting,” reports the National Association for Home Care & Hospice in its member newsletter. “However, there a few non-formatting changes,” NAHC allows.

Those changes are mostly minor, OASIS experts agree. For example, for M1745 — Frequency of Disruptive Behavior Symptoms (Reported or Observed), CMS changes response option 5 from “All the time” to “At least daily,” NAHC points out.

Preparing for OASIS-E1 will be a different story than when HHAs had to get ready to switch from OASIS-D1 to OASIS-E, industry veterans highlight. The changes for that transition “were some of the most expansive revisions to date, and were implemented to increase standardization across the post-acute care (PAC) settings,” recalls Brandy Shifteh with MatrixCare in the software vendor’s blog.

This time: “As opposed to previous OASIS changes, in terms of data collection these are minor,” judges Cindy Krafft with K&K Health Care Solutions.

But wise agencies shouldn’t expect to get staff up to date on the changes all at the last minute.

“Now is not too soon to begin preparing,” advises Beth Noyce with Noyce Consulting in the firm’s blog.

“As we all know, OASIS accuracy is critical, as it is tied to PDGM payment and publicly reported quality outcomes,” Shifteh emphasizes. “So don’t be behind when OASIS-E1 officially begins,” she urges in the blog post.

That said, Krafft recommends rolling the changes “into education in Q4 2024,” she tells AAPC.

And don’t forget: Until the OASIS-D1 items slated for removal are actually gone, “providers should continue to complete them following the item-specific guidance found in the OASIS-E Guidance Manual — Updated January 1, 2024,” advises Lisa Selman-Holman with McBee in the firm’s Insights blog.

Note: The draft manual is at www.cms.gov/files/document/draft-oasis-e1-manual-04-28-2024.pdf and the updated draft tool is at www.cms.gov/medicare/quality/home-health/oasis-data-sets.