Home Health & Hospice Week
Make Sure You’ve Trained Staff Well On D0150
New Q&A shows why PHQ-2 to 9 proficiency is key. If you thought you had time to get your assessment staff up to speed on new OASIS-E items before they affected your risk adjustment, think again. A question-and-answer in the latest Quarterly OASIS Q&As from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services shows why competence with at least one new item is important right off the bat. Question: “Are the new items that were added to the OASIS-E instrument being used in the new risk models that took effect 1/1/2023?” Q&A no. 2 reads. Answer: “To include new items in risk models, CMS first needs to analyze the data submitted for those items,” the Q&A maintains. “As data collection for OASIS-E began January 1, 2023, the items new to OASIS-E are not used in these new risk models but will be evaluated and considered for use in future risk models.” Watch out: “However, as CMS was able to map responses available from OASIS-E item D0150 - Patient Mood Interview (PHQ-2 to 9) to the responses available from OASIS-D1 item M1730 - Depression Screening, D0150 is used in the new risk models that took effect January 1, 2023,” CMS qualifies. “Any time CMS makes changes to this instrument, they are collecting data for a reason and some of this new data may end up impacting payment and/or risk adjustment down the road,” points out consultant Angela Huff with FORVIS in Springfield, Mo. As the Q&A highlights, “D0150 already is in the new model,” Huff emphasizes. Data from more items is likely to soon follow. “It’s critical that CMS has the correct data to analyze and make decisions with going forward,” Huff tells AAPC. “If they don’t have the correct and full picture of the data, decisions may not reflect what reality is for agencies and the patient population they serve, which ultimately doesn’t lead to good decisions,” she cautions. “We have seen this happen with cost report data with poor, incomplete and incorrect data submissions leading to incorrect assumptions and decisions made that may not line up with [what] agencies are really experiencing,” Huff says. Note: The Q&A set is at https://qtso.cms.gov/system/files/qtso/508_CMS_OAI_1st Qtr_2023_QAs_April_2023_final_0.pdf.
Home Health & Hospice Week
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Make Sure You’ve Trained Staff Well On D0150
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