Home health agencies now have a limited opportunity to voice their concerns or opinions about the updated Outcome and Assessment Information Set (OASIS).
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has opened the comment period for the OASIS-C2 data set, which is scheduled to be implemented on January 1, 2017.
The comment period is an opportunity for home health care agencies to speak up about the upcoming changes to the OASIS. A draft of the updated standards became available at the end of 2015. All comments are due by May 31, 2016.
The OASIS-C2 document contains updates that comply with requirements, including three new standardized items, renumbering for items under ICD-10, consolidation of checkboxes, changes to the look-back period and changes to pressure ulcer staging.
CMS invites agencies to comment on any burden estimates or other implementation estimates when it comes to collecting data associated with OASIS-C2 changes.
“CMS has not calculated the additional burden associated with these items,” according to the agency.
However, the agency has estimated that it will take an average of 52.8 minutes to complete the OASIS-C2 assessment and it will require eight hours of ongoing training per agency yearly.
Agencies previously had an opportunity to comment on the looming changes of OASIS when the industry was preparing for the implementation of ICD-10 coding changes.
Written by Amy Baxter
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