OASIS Alert
Industry Notes
Don't expect to have an episode's worth of lag time
The date you enter in M0090 will set whether the 2011 or 2012 PPS grouper applies to your payment, the National Association for Home Care & Hospice points out in its member newsletter. Under the new PPS case mix system, home health agencies' payments will decrease for high-therapy episodes and increase for no- or low-therapy episodes, among other changes.
The new case mix system also eliminates 401.1 (Benign essential hypertension) and 401.9 (Unspecified essential hypertension) as case mix codes, points out coding expert Lisa Selman-Holman on her blog. That also takes effect based on the M00090 date.
In contrast:
The 2.3 percent cut and other rate changes will take effect based on a claim's "through" date, NAHC points out.Note: See CMS's rate update transmittal at www.cms.gov/transmittals/downloads/R2356CP.pdf. The MLN Matters article is at www.cms.gov/MLNMattersArticles/downloads/MM7657.pdf.
OASIS Alert
- Item Focus:
M1242: Watch Non-Verbal Cues for Accurate Pain Assessment
Pain medication doesn't automatically mean your patient has interfering pain. You could be underscoring OASIS [...] - Know When Past Pain Is Pertinent
Discontinuing an activity is one form of "interfering" with activity. The Centers for Medicare & [...] - Assessment:
Dig Deeper to Gather Pain Details
Increase your vocabulary to help patients describe their pain. Getting an accurate picture of the [...] - Training:
Correct Pain Discrepancies to Improve Accuracy and Patient Care
Do you know what qualifies as severe pain? Assessing a patient's pain is just the [...] - Diagnosis Coding:
Mitigate the Pain of Pain Diagnosis Coding With These Tips
Don't assign a pain diagnosis code for every patient in pain. When your patient's OASIS [...] - Therapy:
Fix Therapy Documentation Disconnects with 3 Expert Tips
Work together to get documentation in synch. Therapy use continues to garner scrutiny in home [...] - Integumentary:
Try Your Hand at a Tricky M1308 Scenario
At Recert, it's safe to answer "0" in Column 2 if you've answered "0" in [...] - Documentation:
5 Guidelines Yield Audit-Proof Record Corrections
Documentation clarifications can be a big help -- if you use them wisely. With the plethora [...] - Medical Review:
Avoid Late Entry Red Flags
When does a clarification hurt instead of help? Don't let the fear that your OASIS [...] - Industry Notes
Don't expect to have an episode's worth of lag time when switching over to the [...]
