How Changes to OASIS-E Impacts Home Health Care

What is OASIS in health care and what is the role of CMS in health care? The Outcome and Assessment Information Set (OASIS) assessment looks at patients’ clinical status, demographic info, service needs and functional status. How the new OASIS data collection process affects the home health industry?

What Is the Role of CMS in Health Care?

There are 27 new items on OASIS-E compared to the previous version, with more assessment items to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) medical questionnaire. 

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is part of the Department of Health and Human Services in the United States. It aims to provide health insurance to people through Medicare, Medicaid, the Health Insurance Marketplace and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The CMS sets the guidelines for OASIS in home health care.

What Is OASIS in Health Care?

The OASIS data collection process has always looked at metrics such as cognitive function, skin condition, the incidence of falls and medication reconciliation in patients receiving care at home. This CMS medical assessment provides valuable data to health care providers. Data mining allows doctors to make faster diagnoses, choose the most effective treatments for a patient and detect potential drug interactions.

The OASIS assessment helps home health care aides prevent and treat chronic diseases, make care more affordable, improve communication between health care workers and patients, reduce harm and strengthen family engagement with the patient. As the population ages, the job market for home health care workers is projected to grow 25% by 2031, making it crucial to streamline the information-gathering process.

OASIS-E took effect on January 1st, 2023. The update aims to make it easier for home health agencies to meet the requirements of the Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation Act of 2014 (IMPACT Act). The IMPACT Act requires health care workers to report standardized patient assessment data using quality control measures. It aims to improve Medicare’s post-acute care services — such as care after surgery or heart attack — and patient data reports.

The 2023 OASIS Update

OASIS-E includes several new items health care workers should know about. They consist of:

1. Ethnicity
2. Race
3. Language
4. Transportation
5. Med list provision to provider in the TRF OASIS category
6. Med list provision to provider in the DC OASIS category
7. Route of provision to provider
8. Med list provision to patient
9. Route of provision to patient
10. Hearing
11. The vision section now has five options
12. Health literacy
13. Whether health care workers should perform an interview for mental status
14. Repetition of three words
15. Temporal orientation
16. Recall
17. Summary score
18. Signs and symptoms of delirium
19. Patient mood interview
20. Total severity score
21. Social isolation
22. Pain effect on sleep
23. Whether pain is interfering with therapy
24. Whether pain is interfering with activities
25. Nutritional approaches
26. High-risk drug classes
27. Special treatments and procedures

Clinicians must complete the OASIS assessment — including all updates — several times over the course of a patient’s care. The role of OASIS in home health is to gain a thorough understanding of a patient’s mental, physical and emotional state in a non-invasive manner.

The new OASIS data collection process removes a few items from the original questionnaire, whether completely or only at follow-up. The 2023 OASIS assessment also changes the nature of certain items. The modified or deleted items are:

1. Race/Ethnicity
2. Vision
3. Depression screening
4. Urinary incontinence
5. Bowel incontinence frequency
6. Ostomy
7. Primary diagnosis
8. Other diagnoses
9. Frequency of pain interfering with activity
10. Fall risk assessment
11. Dyspnea
12. Therapies received at home
13. Current number of unhealed pressure ulcers
14. Current number of Stage 1 pressure ulcers
15. Stage of most problematic pressure ulcer
16. Presence of stasis ulcer
17. Status of most problematic stasis ulcer
18. Presence of surgical wound
19. Status of most problematic surgical wound
20. Drug education intervention
21. Management of injectable medications
22. Pneumococcal vaccine
23. Intervention synopsis

The Role of OASIS in Home Health

What is OASIS in health care? In summary, it’s a CMS medical questionnaire that improves patient care and satisfaction. Gathering data allows clinicians to assess, diagnose, treat and monitor patients in a home health setting.

The OASIS-E is the most extensive update to the OASIS data collection system since the 90s when CMS first introduced the program. Health care providers should thoroughly read the new guidelines so they can quickly and easily perform patient assessments.

Shannon Flynn - Managing Editor at ReHack

With over 4 years of writing and editing experience, Shannon focusses on covering topics like medical, health, and lifestyle technology.