Oasis.......Yikes

Libby1987 · Jun 27, 2016

Oasis is learnable but you're still very early in and learning about a multi aspect speciality.

I'd advise taking a section at a time and learn efficient ways to obtain comprehensive info and the intent of questions to help you answer correctly.

One thing to keep in the forefront of your perception as you're performing an assessment is that it is about preventing admission to the hospital and identifying the multiple ways how the patient is at risk. You are literally looking for problems to address and the oasis gives you way to justify your care plan and referrals to other disciplines.

You can look at the guidelines here or your company may already have them downloaded.

TequilaMockingbird · Jul 4, 2016

I agree with the previous answer. Yes, you are very new to home health and Oasis takes time to master. My suggestion is to visit Oasis Answers web site and read everything you can about Oasis. The first thing to know is that it is important to your company because your answers determine the payment they receive to take care of the patient. If you answer questions appropriately, then the agency should receive a payment to cover all the services ( SN, PT, OT, ST, etc.,) that you say the patient needs. If you just go through and mark boxes to get the task done, the agency may not get the money they need to take care of the patient. They will still have to provide the service, but it might not cover the actual expense of caring for the patient. Oasis is very important and since you have only been on the job a couple of months, hopefully, they provided you with a basic education. You can go to CMS.gov and search Oasis. They also have training online for free, but it is currently a little outdated. If you like home health, taking the time to learn Oasis can take you very far. Oasis Answers workshops are the best way to fully understand Oasis and become certified, but I would suggest you spend at least a year learning the basics before taking the 3 day class for certification. Good Luck

Libby1987 · Jul 5, 2016

To piggyback on above post, Oasis is also used to rate your agency's performance and results are posted on the CMS website. Many healthcare systems are now declaring that they will only refer to 5 star agencies. A major part of that rating comes from comparing Oasis questions from SOC to discharge. If the patient didn't improve in rated criteria then it affects your agencies rating as well will impact reimbursement.

A common issue is a nurse who admits the patients doesn't use the same assessment guidelines and technique as the therapist who discharges and improvements are not reflected.