Home Health & Hospice Week

Watch out for new consistency checks between OASIS items on ulcers and wounds.

The change to the OASIS lock date regulation won't be the only OASIS difference home health agencies see this month.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will release new OASIS data specifications and HAVEN software in June to include the OASIS data transmission requirements, a CMS official said in the in the May 24 Home Health, Hospice and DME Open Door Forum.

The new version will have a space for the National Provider ID (NPI) number, which agencies may leave blank. And it will allow filtering of data by branch ID.

It also will include consistency checks between M0460 (Stage of most problematic [observable] pressure ulcer) and M0464 (Status of most problematic [observable] pressure ulcer); between M0468 (Does the patient have a stasis ulcer?) and M0476 (Status of most problematic [observable] stasis ulcer); and between M0482 (Does this patient have a surgical wound) and M0488 (Status of most problematic [observable] surgical wound).

In mid-June, CMS plans to send a new HAVEN CD to all agencies currently using the software and post the new version on its Web site.