Get used to the changes that you'll have to use as early as Dec. 27.
You have only a few short months to get your staff proficient with a revamped OASIS tool.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has issued the finalized OASIS dataset, OASIS B-1 (1/2008), that takes into account the prospective payment system refinements that will hit Jan. 1. The new OASIS tool will add M0110 on early/late episodes to all assessments and add M0470, M0474, M0520 and M0800 to recertification and follow-up assessments and will drop M0175 and M0610, CMS notes on its Web site.
The new therapy item, M0826, will replace the current M0825. And the new diagnosis coding item, M0246, will replace the current M0245. (For more information on OASIS changes under the PPS revisions, see Eli's HCW, Vol. XVI, No. 30).
Pitfall: Home health agencies will begin using RFA 4 and 5s Dec. 27 and all assessments Jan. 1. Don't mess up and use the new OASIS form before it's allowed, experts caution.
HHAs must use the new version of OASIS (01/2008) effective Dec. 27 for all Recertification assessments completed during the five-day window for episodes that begin on or after Jan.1, the National Association for Home Care & Hospice explains to it members. "However, during this same time period, the current version of OASIS (12/2002) must continue to be used for all Start of Care, Recertification, and Significant Change in Condition assessments if the episode start date is in 2007," NAHC cautions.
The new dataset is at
www.cms.hhs.gov/HomeHealthQualityInits/12_HHQIOASISDataSet.asp under the "Downloads" section, dated 2008/01. • There's no deadline yet by which DMEPOS suppliers nationwide must be accredited, confirmed a CMS official in the agency's Oct. 10 home health Open Door Forum. Rumor had it that April 2009 was the "drop dead" date, said CMS' Sandra Bastinelli, speaking at the forum. "If someone was betting on it, [that date] wasn't even close," she said. "It wasn't even a proposed date."
CMS will post the date, when it's available, on its Web site, agency officials said, offering no news of just when that would be. • Don't get too comfortable with your 2008 payment rates. The American Medical Association and AARP are buying television ads to put pressure on members of Congress to stop the 10 percent cut to physicians' Medicare payments. The pressure from the heavy-hitting lobbies may result in payment cuts for home care providers, observers predict.
But there's also a chance for gains in this congressional session. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) is introducing bipartisan legislation that will curb the payment cuts CMS seeks to impose for supposed case mix creep. CMS plans 10.96 percent in such cuts over the next four years. Sens. Bob Casey (D-PA), Kit [...]
