OASIS-Central

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is in the process of implementing a new way to log in to the OASIS Submission System and CASPER Reports. In the past, the login used has always been a shared login, but now agency users will be required to register for personal login IDs. The shared agency login will no longer work.

Conversion results so far

For several agencies that have undergone the conversion, the general consensus was the same: Registration was easy, but there was some downtime.

Vicki Schroeder, a billing clerk at St. Anthony Home Health in Carroll, IA, said the conversion went smoothly and it was easy to register. Schroeder said once she set up her new login and entered the site, she couldn’t reenter the system on the same day. However, the next day she had no trouble logging in.

Linda Schillizzi of Alexian Brothers Home Health in Hanover Park, IL, experienced a similar case. Schillizzi said her agency had no problems registering and entering the OASIS Submission System, but it was not able to access its final OASIS report. Schillizzi called the number on the QIES Technical Support Office Web site and was told that she needed to wait until the next day to access the final OASIS report. When she tried to access the report again, it worked fine.

This downtime scared the staff at Assure Home Healthcare, Inc., in Skokie, IL, according to Alma Jaruda-Palonpon, RN, who serves as the agency’s director of clinical and professional services. Jaruda-Palonpon said staff thought the downtime they experienced during that first day would be an everyday occurrence, but she noted that once the second day of the changes came, everything was like it was before the change.

Bonnie Vos of Skiff Home Care in Newton, IA, said she was able to submit the OASIS-C assessment without any trouble. Vos explained that because she registered on the initial day, she waited until the next day to receive the validation report and didn’t consider this downtime.

The general consensus was that the conversion offered no big setbacks. There was a brief amount of downtime, but things returned to normal the next day.

The state-by-state deployment, which began February 23, is expecting to wrap up by July 27.

Tell us: Is this the same for your agency? Has the conversion been completed at your agency or are you still waiting? Let OASIS-Central know your stories!

This is an excerpt from the article “CMS Conversion to Personal Logins Under Way”, which originally appeared in the April  2010 edition of Homecare Administrator. Learn more about Homecare Administrator here!