New MDS Manual Draft

Talino · Sep 3, 2002

Quoted from:

Vol. 3 No. 35

September 3, 2002

2. CMS RELEASES UPDATED MDS CODING MANUAL FOR COMMENT

Long-term care professionals who work with the Resident Assessment Instrument (RAI) are probably tired of consulting their old RAI User's Manuals and then leafing through several question and answer (Q&A) sets every time they're uncertain about the process. Well, soon they won't have to, as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released an updated RAI User's Manual--in draft form--last week. Here are some of the changes to the manual:

- It has a slightly different layout, with Chapters 4 and 5 combined

- It contains all CMS' policy changes and clarifications in the Q&A sets

- It includes all other revisions added since the original manual, such as the agency's correction policy for the Minimum Data Set (MDS) and instructions for the MDS form for hospital swing-beds. Providers wishing to comment can send an e-mail to [email protected] until September 9.

Go to http://www.snfinfo.com/ppsrc/#MDS to access each of the nine sections of the updated manual.

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