Home Health Quality Reporting & OASIS

The 2024 Home Health Final Rule has us looking ahead to some significant changes to the Home Health Quality Reporting Program (HH QRP) and OASIS instrument. The changes will go into effect January 1, 2025 and will impact the OASIS instrument by adding one new item and removing two items. The quality reporting data will also change, resulting in removing a section of the GG functional items. The 2024 Final Rule changes to begin January 1, 2025  are:

1. Adopt two new measures, adding a new OASIS item:
   1. Begin collecting data on COVID-19 vaccination status with the new OASIS item, O0350  Patient’s COVID-19 vaccination is up to date, with yes or no response.
   2. Use currently collected data to determine a Discharge Function Score (DC Function). This score will evaluate functional status by calculating the percentage of patients who meet or exceed an expected discharge function score. The DC Function score will be calculated by risk-adjusting the observed score for each episode and will not be self-reported.
2. Remove one measure and two OASIS items:
   1. The “Application of percent of patients with an admission and discharge functional assessment and a care plan that addresses function” measure that is currently based on the self-reported discharge goal in the GG items will be removed, resulting in the deletion of the discharge goal section of GG0130 and GG0170.
   2. OASIS items, M0110 Episode Timing and M2200 Therapy need, are no longer used in the calculation of quality measures or payment will be removed from the OASIS instrument on January 1, 2025.