New to mds

NurseMellie · Apr 25, 2015

Welcome to the nut house! A few resources are Home - Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and Welcome to AANAC

I think after you have probably 6 months of experience with the MDS, take a certification course if you can. You can take some of the classes on AANAC (its the American Association of Nursing assessment coordination) Or Harmony Healthcare has a 3 day training course that you can take. It all depends on what is available in your area.

As far as organization, I use a calendar to write when folks' 5d,14d, etc are due and open them early. We have rehab meetings 3x week and I keep notes on my folks and discuss with therapy what days would be best for the Med A. When actually working on a MDS I have a form that I fill out that has everything from ADLs for space to write for notes on MD visits, eating, toileting, dietary etc. The manual will be your friend/constant companion. Good Luck, stick with it. You will get to a point where everything makes sense don't rush it.

okikatt · May 15, 2015

I am an LPN and I was just asked by my facility to take over the MDS because our current coordinator resigned. I have never done MDS and I'm a little (ok, a lot) nervous. The assessment part doesn't really worry me because as a nurse we do that al the time. It's the timelines for 5 day, 14 day, etc. and making the calendar. I'm afraid I'll miss a date or send too early or too late. It is a LTC/SNF 56 bed facility and I'll be doing it all. I just ordered a MDS ARDS finder and several other tools to help me out but any advice would be appreciated.

NurseMellie · May 18, 2015

I have a couple of different sources that I use. One is Point Click Care for our main charting system and then the Contracted Therapy's system. Between the two I set the dates. In your manual there should be a table that states when you can have your ard. There are grace periods etc. Those will also play a role in how you set your ards. In most systems you cannot set the ARD before the grace window opens for example. You have an ard coming up but your grace days haven't begun yet. You cannot set a 30day with an ard on day 23. Completing and sending in the MDS's early there is no penalty. In most cases signing them as complete there is no penalty. The penalty comes in opening the mds late or not at all. Once the mds's are open though you can tweak the dates.

cvrnhopeful · May 22, 2015

Hi everyone. I am new to MDS and have some questions about the timeline. Unfortunately the previous mds coordinator left before I could get much training. I feel comfortable in the assessments but, knowing what to open up is stumping me. She was explaining to me that I should wait to do the 5 day until day 13 because I may not need to do something. Can someone please explain the assessments and time frame a little better please? Thank you.

NurseMellie · May 25, 2015

Open the RAI manual and go to chapter 2 page 41. There is a list of what you need to remember. You have until day 8 to set your 5day ARD. You should be doing a 5 day atleast. If the resident stays less than 14 days you don't have to do an admission assessment that would be required by OBRA. But of course I work in LTC/rehab not swing beds.

cvrnhopeful · May 28, 2015

That's the setting I am in too. Any tips on how you found that your schedule worked best? Thank you for your help.

NurseMellie · May 29, 2015

I have a blank calendar that I start with, I then pencil in the OBRAs which are the quarterly and annual assessments. So you have 92 days from the previous quarterly assessment to do another assessment and the follow up annual needs to be completed no later than 366 days after the last annual assessment. I usually set those ARDS for a Monday or Tues depending on the work week. The day of the ARD the only thing you can really do is the interviews. You can start gathering some of your data but you will need to recheck some areas like the restorative programs if you are waiting on those minutes. I try not to schedule any more than 3-4 on any given day if at all possible. There is more leeway with the Obras than the PPS when scheduling. So once that calendar is set, it gets typed and handed out to the rest of the team members. From there I check my PPS assessments and my initial assessments. Those also get penciled in on the calendar for me to follow. We discuss in our rehab meetings when it would be most beneficial for the PPS to be set. Our jobs is to maximize the payment we receive and give appropriate care.

It takes probably a good six months before the light bulb goes off in your brain that you've got a handle on it and a full year to become comfortable. Keep working at it and ask questions :)

4boysmama · Jun 4, 2015

we have two master excel spreadsheets; one for OBRA and one for PPS. The PPS I have set so that once I enter an admission date, it populates the ARD and grace days for up to 90 days after admission. I print one of these for every admission, adn it goes in a master binder. I pencil circle the dates I anticipate using, and confer with therapy before setting exct dates. For PPS, I update quarterly, and all residents are listed by room number and unit; I put in the last ARD and the next three due dates autopopulate. At the beginning of every month I filter just that month's due assessments, and print a copy for unit managers and rehab- we then confer to commit to a date and it gets set in our system. we've yet to miss an assessment with this method :)

cvrnhopeful · Jun 6, 2015

Those are all really helpful ideas. Thank you so much for the great advice everyone.