Good, bad or indifferent, CMS is changing the MDS effective October 2020! Surprisingly, there will no longer be a section G in OBRA and PPS assessments and will only appear on the Optional State Assessment (OSA).

There are tons of questions regarding how this will impact how we document functional status. The limited coding instructions imply we will eliminate the Rule of Three guidance and be coding OBRA assessments based on the resident’s usual performance. This will require much more collaboration between all disciplines caring for each resident. Hmmm, collaboration between disciplines? Seriously, this shouldn’t be a novel idea, we should be doing this consistently if we are going to get a true picture of our residents’ status.

There will be changes to Section GG (in an effort to capture functional status) however, the guidance available to date is limited. Take a look at the CMS website to review the current changes and (limited) guidance.