MDS nurse.....

[nursie-nurse]

What does this nurse do?

Thanks

[amanda_lou]

From what I understand, a MDS nurse does assessments of all residents living in a Medicare/Medicaid certified long term care facility. The MDS is a very involved, specific care plan for each resident and must be completed within a certain time frame after admission. Hope this helps... :)

[Nascar nurse, ASN, RN]

Hello. I am a MDS nurse in the midwest in a long term care facility. This is complicated, but will try to simplfy as much as possible. MDS = miminum data set. This is a comprehensive assessment tool used by federal and state regulatory agencies to determine financial reimbursement.. ie: medicare rates and in some states (mine included) medicaide rates. This assessment tool is required to be completed on each resident at prescribed intervals ie: 5day post admit, 14 day, 30d, 60d and 90 day post admit for all medicare and upon admit, quarterly and significant changes in condition for all others. There's a little more to it - but why confuse you here! The government has a detailed definition for each item coded and it better be followed to the letter or facilities can receive financial penalties. The MDS assessment covers things such as their communication, vision, cognition, ADL assistance, continence, medications, injections, IV's, diagnosis, diets and on and on and on. This information is used to develop the care plan. It is also used by the government for quality indicators and quality measures (available to the public at http://www.medicare.gov). It is a pain in the butt job. Most love it or hate it. I am one of the screwball ones who loves it - weird I know! So.. is it clear as mud now?