Home Health ICD-9/ICD-10 Alert

Diagnosis coding items are slated for a make-over.

Just when you were settling in to OASIS-C, OASIS C-1 is on the way. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will implement the next version of OASIS when the new ICD-10 diagnosis coding set takes effect in October 2014.

With the code set transition, many of the changes will relate to the diagnosis code items on the assessment tool, but there will be other changes as well, CMS’s Pat Sevast told attendees of the National Association for Home Care & Hospice’s March on Washington conference March 18.

Watch for CMS to modify several items based on industry feedback. Renumbering of some items is also in the plan. And based on demands from the Office of Management and Budget, CMS also will remove some items at certain timepoints. “Some items that you are used to collecting … might no longer be collected,” Sevast said.

Proposed changes from the OMB include the deletion of M1012, M1310, M1312 and M1314. Other items such as M1350 will be deleted at follow-up and discharge. See Table 1 outlining the proposed changes below.

CMS had expected to have released the changes already, but the revision was held up by OMB’s input, Sevast related.

Note: To read more about the OMB’s proposed changes, visit www.reginfo.gov/public/do/DownloadDocument?documentID=364325&version=1.