Hi, grandma4!
Well, you must be a fearless soul! I hope your employer(s) is going to help you get some education regarding the MDS report. Usually, they have a consultant group that will teach you what it all involves. You need to understand, if your bosses don't, that this is an important task that has financial ramifications for the business. The MDS determines the facility case mix index and how much reimbursement the facility is going to get for Medicare and Medicaid patients. These MDS reports have to be as accurate as you can make them. They do involve knowing what care is being provided to the patients, so on one hand you have to know the patients. But these are also legal documents that are being sent to Medicare. The MDS report is sent by computer to the CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services). CMS is a name that is going to burn in your memory as an MDS coordinator. You can find some information on their website about the laws pertaining to these reports. Because I don't work with them, you need to get together with other MDS nurses to find out what resources are out there for you. Just a word of caution, to deliberately falsify any MDS report is a federal crime.
Allnurses has a subforum in the Geriatric and LTC Forum that is specifically for MDS Coordinators (that's you!). Here is a link to both of these forums that you will want to check out.
Also,- http://www.cms.hhs.gov/center/snf.asp - Skilled nursing page on Medicare website - if you click on the first link under the heading "Billing/Payment" (SNF PPS - that stands for Skilled Nursing Facility Prospective Payment System) you will go to a page that gives you a basic explanation of how Medicare and Medicaid pay Skilled nursing facilities for their services to patients. At the lower part of the page are more links. One of them is the "MDS Forms & Manual". When you go to that page, you will find links to download these documents, but they are quite large. You might want to ask your bosses if they already have this information reprinted somewhere. You need to read it all.
I've been studying Health Information Management (used to be called Medical Records) which is kind of the umbrella under which knowledge of this stuff falls. While I don't know specifics on MDS, I do know what it is and where to find information about it. What I can tell you is that you have to know the Medicare regulations on this and that's why I posted the CMS website for you. And, with that, I'll just say, happy reading, because you are going to be doing a lot of it before you even complete your first MDS report! You are in the land of red tape now, baby! You wanted paperwork? You got it! Most nurses are unaware of this part of LTC.
Welcome to allnurses!
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