Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

Know when to expect MDS 3.0.

If you're wondering what's going on with MDS 3.0, you'll welcome these expert answers.
 
Where is the MDS 3.0 now? Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS) contractor Rand Corporation is currently conducting a national evaluation of the draft MDS 3.0 in eight states and four VA regions across the country. CMS has also posted the draft 3.0 version on its Web site.

At the conclusion of the national test, "Rand will receive feedback from all the nurses who used the tool," reports Debra Saliba, MD, MPH, associate professor at UCLA and a researcher for the Rand Corporation, which is conducting the 3.0 field testing. "Rand and Harvard University will also analyze the reliability or agreement among the nurses who collected the MDS information and examine the validity of significantly revised MDS sections," she adds. "We will do a crosswalk between the current 2.0 version and the draft 3.0 version to preserve functionality of the current payment cells and quality measures."

Rand's final report on the field-testing is due to CMS in December 2007, reports Saliba. CMS will then review Rand's recommendations and make a "final decision on roll-out dates and requirements," she says.

Will MDS 3.0 really go into effect? Some people in long-term care predict that the process of switching to a totally new MDS is so complex that CMS could put it on the back burner indefinitely and come up with a revised MDS 2.0 instead.

But regulatory analyst Peter Arbuthnot doesn't think CMS has any choice but to move ahead with 3.0 implementation. He points to CMS' need to introduce more quality measures to deal with pay for performance and other emerging issues, including ICD-10, the move to electronic medical records -- and the revised RUG system, which will better reflect ancillary costs.