OASIS Alert

Be on the lookout for new training opportunities,too.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has some news that will fall on very welcome ears -- especially for agencies needing more OASIS C support.

The agency is issuing a new manual about the OASIS C process measures any day, according to CMS' Pat Sevast in the April 14 Open Door Forum for home care providers.

"This manual will provide an explanation and description of the process measure report that will be available in September from CASPER about the different process measures from OASIS C," Sevast said in the call.

And, better late than never, you will get more help from CMS on OASIS C training. CMS is developing two one-hour "Web broadcast training sessions," Sevast reported.

They will be available in late spring or early summer. CMS also may develop more Web-based training modules, she added.

• The home health conditions of participation are back on the table once again. The home health COPs were last proposed in March 1997, noted CMS's Pat Sevast at the National Association for Home Care & Hospice's March on Washington meeting in Washington, D.C.

The COPs have been revised again and again since that time and are now on track for fall publication, Sevast told attendees at an April 12 session.

However, be aware that changes enacted in the health care reform package could take priority over the COPs finally coming out. "Anything can bump them," she said.

• Don't worry that surveyors will be using your OASIS C data to target survey activities any time soon. Surveyors won't get new survey instructions based on OASIS C until outcome-based quality improvement (OBQI) reports based on OASIS C are available, noted Sevast.

Right now OBQI reports are suspended during the transition to OASIS C. Process measure- based reports will be available in September and outcome-based reports will be available again in May 2011, reported CMS' Robin Dowell at the NAHC meeting.

Surveyors will pull your most recent OASIS B-1-based reports for surveys, Pat Sevast explained. The last B-1 reports came out April 15.

• When you're working out your plan to transition to ICD-10 diagnosis coding, don't expect to do it in one leap.

"It's not practical to cut over to the new coding system all at once," advises technology consulting firm CSC based in Falls Church, Va."Health care organizations can expect an xtended transition period during which they will have to support both ICD-9 and ICD-10 coding systems," CSC says in a new report, "ICD-10 Implementation: Objects on the Horizon Are Closer Than You Think."

ICD-10's 2013 implementation date may sound far away, but health care providers should be starting their ICD-10 migration strategy now, CSC urges in the report.