Home Health & Hospice Week

You'd better get hold of your M0016 number - fast. 

Home health agencies, beware: OASIS item M0016 is lurking in the shadows, waiting to trip you up in the new year.

This field on the OASIS assessment will no longer be optional come 2004. On assessments with a completion date (M0090) on or after Jan. 1, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services requires agencies to include the branch ID.

CMS has nearly completed assigning all branch ID numbers, a CMS source tells Eli. CMS regional offices are responsible for notifying home health agencies of the numbers, says Lee Dobson of North Carolina Quality Improvement Organization Health Care Quality Assessment.

If an OASIS is submitted without one of three items - the 10-digit branch ID, "P" (for parent) or "N" (for no branches) - in M0016, a fatal error will occur and the record will be rejected, the CMS spokesperson confirms (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XII, No. 12, p. 90).

Branch IDs eventually will allow for branch-specific outcome reports. "For a branch office to be able to download their own outcome report they have to have at least 12 months of data," Dobson says in a Dec. 16 message to home health agencies. "This will be a very beneficial tool, especially if your branch offices are 'different' than the parent."

Many of clinical consultant Judy Adams' clients are unaware of whether they've received their branch ID numbers, she says. HHAs that haven't received their numbers should contact their states' OASIS Education Coordinators, Dobson instructs. Or agencies should get in touch with their certification departments, Adams suggests.