Understanding the new quality measure: Functional Discharge Score

Best practices for improving Functional Discharge Scores

The biggest challenge for most agencies is that they don’t get the OASIS scoring correct at the start of care due to lack of education on OASIS items. This can lead to the inability to show improvement at discharge because patients were scored as more independent than they should have been. Here are some best practices to help improve these scores under the new OASIS-E1 updates:

Collaborate with therapies.

Be sure to collaborate with therapies when answering these questions and whether the patient is doing it safely. Just because they walk across the room 10 feet without assistance, are they safe to walk across the room 10 feet without assistance?

Educate clinicians on each question.

The GG items have been largely ignored by agencies because they haven’t held much importance. They’ve often been viewed as a repeat of what is asked in the M1800 questions. Now that has to change and clinicians need to pay more attention and understand the significance of the GG items.

Consider its impact on value-based purchasing.

If your agency scores below average compared to other comparable agencies, you can get up to a 5% penalty. If you do better than other agencies with your scoring, you can get up to 5% additional in reimbursement. This is for every patient, so value-based purchasing has a major impact on your agency’s performance.