OASIS Alert

Try this new way to audit OASIS.

If you think an audit has to be done alone in a chart room or office, think again. Involving other people can make the audit process more efficient, more accurate and a training opportunity as well.

Admission reviews help provide consistency of information among all the admission documents and ensure there is documentation to support the OASIS responses selected, says Rhonda Will of Fazzi Associates in Northampton, MA.

Improve On The Old Way

 In a traditional admission audit, the auditor reviews the documentation for the patient alone in her office. She reviews the chart, the OASIS assessment and all other available documentation. Then she must hunt down other people or information to fill in the missing gaps. If corrections are needed, she must track down the clinician and make sure the corrections are signed, monitored for compliance and added to the medical record.

Try A Case Conference Approach

A more efficient way to audit each new admission is to hold a case conference, rather than conduct an admission audit, suggests consultant Karen Vance with BKD in Springfield, MO. Once the clinician evaluates the patient and develops the plan of care, the ideal situation is to gather everyone involved in the case and run through the critical OASIS data elements, she suggests.

"With everyone in the room who has seen the patient--including the home health aide--you can use everyone's input to assure the assessment has the most accurate OASIS item responses," she tells Eli.

Example: With the information discussed during the case conference, the coder may discover that several people are addressing different aspects of multiple sclerosis (bladder dysfunction, gait training and swallowing difficulty), resulting in a more accurate diagnosis as well as case mix points.

Bonus: Discussing what each person assessed and how they assessed it results in everyone in the room learning something, Vance says. And if any OASIS data needs to be changed, it can be corrected and initialed during the conference. Once the agency gets past the learning curve, you can do these conferences very quickly, she adds.