OASIS Alert

CMS releases a flood of information -- including some on your wish list.

It's time to throw away your accumulated collection of OASIS Q&As and download just one document.

Have you always wanted access to an integrated set of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' OASIS questions and answers? You have your wish! On Oct. 22 CMS posted a set of Q&As from August 2004 through the end of September 2007 to its Quality Improvement and Evaluation System Web site. The questions address 12 categories of OASIS information, including assessment issues, training, data submission, outcomes and the interaction of OASIS and the prospective payment system. If more than one question addresses the same assessment item, the questions are all included under one item.

Example: Questions about answering M0100 (Reason for assessment) are under Cate-gory 4, question 23. There are nine questions -- 23.1 to 23.9 -- under this main heading.

Helpful: Updated Q&As include information about when the item was added, edited or deleted as outdated, as well as links to underlying documents.

Bonus: You can download a "pdf" document containing all the Q&As related to managing OASIS for a single visit -- along with a two page chart summarizing the information -- at the QIES Web site (see related story, p. 116).

Another updated OASIS document every home health agency needs to have readily available is on the QIES site. The October 2007 updated Chapter 8 of the OASIS User's Manual contains the information you need for the new 2008 PPS that takes effect Jan. 1. Appendix D containing new coding examples is not yet ready, CMS says.

Planning: There are 1,836 possible HIPPS codes under the 2008 PPS. If you want to know the resulting case mix weight and routine medical supplies reimbursement amount for each of these possibilities, CMS has just the document for you. Go to http://www.cms.hhs.gov/HomeHealthPPS/03_coding&billing.asp and select "HH PPS HIPPS Code Weight Table."

And if you're looking for a clear overview of the new PPS case mix refinements claims processing changes, go to the same Web site and select "Presentation of HH PPS Claims Processing Changes" for CMS staffer Will Gehne's outline.

Note: The QIES site is http://www.qtso.org. Q&As are at the bottom of the page. Questions answered more recently than Oct. 1 are available on at http://www.oasiscertificate.org/displayassociationlinks.cfm.