Hello, everyone, and welcome to our Monday Minute.
Today we’re going to hit some very high-level highlights of the OASIS-E implementation, including some significant changes. As a result of this implementation that would impact items that had already been included in OASIS-D1. As OASIS-D1 was implemented at the beginning of PDGM, which would have been 2020, they made very few changes to the items themselves, with the exception of a very long list of items that they made optional on the Follow-Up OASIS, which we also call the Recertification OASIS. These items became optional, many probably did not even know they were optional, and some were very concerned about the fact that they were optional, primarily because two of the key items that were made optional were the primary and secondary diagnoses of the patient. That list of items is now being permanently removed from the Follow-Up OASIS with the implementation of OASIS-E.
I just want to highlight and emphasize the fact that even though these items are being removed at the point of Recertification or Follow-Up, it is so important that you ensure that your staff is still reevaluating the focus of care moving forward into that recertification period of care, and that you are ensuring your plan of care and orders are updated to include the diagnosis codes that are being currently attended to or cared for during that coming recertification episode. As you all know, PDGM reimbursement in the reimbursement and calculation of your HIPPS code relies heavily on the primary and secondary diagnoses that are reflected on your claim. So, for each period of care, you want to ensure that those are accurate, even if that does not include them currently being required on the OASIS.
In addition to that, of course, OASIS-E brings multiple additional items to the OASIS document itself, we are all familiar with the M items, and of course, in the last couple of years GG items and J items, we are now going to have A, B, C, D items, new J items, K items, N items, and O items. So, in OASIS education in the past, everybody referred to the OASIS items as M items or Moo items, we now still have a few of them, but then we have all these other additional letters of the alphabet as well.
A couple of very interesting things I thought that have been added with OASIS-E are the BIMS items, which is the Brief Interview of Mental Status, the Cognitive Assessment Method or CAM status, and the update to the PHQ process, the PHQ-2 will still be on the OASIS and if the results of the PHQ-2 are positive for depression, you will then complete the PHQ-9 that has been revised.
All of these items can be overwhelming, and I wanted to make sure that even though we’re just in mid-July, you understand the significance of beginning OASIS-E education immediately. We cannot wait until November, December and expect that our clinicians are going to have what they need in order to complete these OASIS as accurately as possible. Some of the items that are being added with OASIS-E will impact the Home Health Quality Reporting Program at some point, they definitely will not immediately impact your PDGM HIPPS code calculation and reimbursement and they will not immediately impact Value-Based Purchasing. We have that education that has to be done before January as well.
Thank you all for participating today. I hope this information has been helpful and has, if nothing else, given you a little bit of encouragement, if that’s the right word, to begin OASIS-E education as soon as you possibly can with your field staff. Thank you all for continuing to care for patients in these crazy times. If there is ever anything that HPS can help you with, please don’t hesitate to let us know. Thank you all and have a fabulous week.