OASIS Alert

A New OASIS is on the Horizon

Heads up: 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.

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.

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

Welcome these Training Resources

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has issued 12 modules of OASIS training, CMS’s Pat Sevast told attendees of the National Association for Home Care & Hospice’s March on Washington conference March 18. And it still has a few more in development — care management, therapy needs and emergent care, and patient history and diagnosis are all upcoming topics.

To see all the available OASIS training modules, visit surveyortraining.cms.hhs.gov/index.aspx, and then click on the “I am Provider” link. Next, click on the “Web based Training” link at the top of the page. Scroll down and click on the “Outcome and Assessment Information Set (OASIS) training” link, then click on the “Launch the Course” link.

The Pressure’s on to Reduce Rehospitalizations

More than 37 percent of hospitalized Medicare beneficiaries are discharged to home health, said Jennie Harvell with the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary of Planning and Evaluation (ASPE). Of those benes, 28 percent are readmitted to the hospital, Harvell told attendees of the National Association for Home Care & Hospice’s March on Washington meeting March 18.

CMS recently has started financially penalizing hospitals with overly high readmission rates. Don’t be surprised to see that methodology applies to home care payments eventually, industry observers predict.