OASIS-C2 Data Set

Home health care providers have an opportunity to offer their feedback on the updated Outcome and Assessment Information Set (OASIS). The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) opened the comment period for the OASIS-C2 data set and is scheduled to be implemented on Jan. 1, 2017. A draft of the updated standards became available at the end of 2015 and the comments are due by May 31, 2016.

As reminder, the OASIS-C2 is meant to enable home health providers to comply with requirements set by the Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation (IMPACT) Act. It calls for various types of Medicare-certified post-acute providers—including home health agencies, skilled nursing facilities, inpatient rehabilitation facilities and long-term care hospitals—to begin submitting certain types of standardized data. The idea is to have similar information provided across several post-acute settings.

The OASIS-C2 document contains updates that comply with these requirements. This includes: three new standardized items (M1028, M1060, GG0170c); renumbering for items under ICD-10 (M1311, M1313, M2001, M2003, M2005); consolidation of checkboxes from multiple check boxes to a single box for data entry; changes to the look-back period; and changes to numbering for pressure ulcer staging from Roman to Arabic numerals.

CMS wants agencies to comment on any burden estimates or other implementation estimates. Please see page 18855, Federal Register April 1, 2016 to submit comments.

Contact: Cheryl Udell, cudell@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8871