OASIS Skip Patterns and Branching Logic

Skip pattern. Skip patterns always involve two or more items. The first item in the group is designated the trigger (or gateway) item. The value of the trigger item determines whether the remaining items are answered by the assessor or are skipped. If an item is skipped, it will be blank (have no value). Items that are blank because they are skipped must be denoted with the "caret" character (^) in the submission file.

Not all OASIS items are completed at every assessment time point. All OASIS assessments, except transfer to inpatient facility and death at home, require the clinician to have an in-person encounter with the patient during a home visit. The transfer to an inpatient facility and death at home time points require collection of limited OASIS data (most of which may be obtained through a telephone call). OASIS data should be collected at each time point based on a unique patient assessment, not simply carried over from a previous assessment.

J0510. Pain Effect on Sleep [...] Ask patient: "Over the past 5 days, how much of the time has pain made it hard for you to sleep at night?" 0. Does not apply — I have not had any pain or hurting in the past 5 days → Skip to M1400, Short of Breath at SOC/ROC; Skip to J1800, Any Falls Since SOC/ROC at DC

M1306. Does this patient have at least one Unhealed Pressure Ulcer/Injury at Stage 2 or Higher or designated as Unstageable? (Excludes Stage 1 pressure injuries and all healed pressure ulcers/injuries) [...] 0. No → Skip to M1322, Current Number of Stage 1 Pressure Injuries at SOC/ROC; Skip to M1324, Stage of Most Problematic Unhealed Pressure Ulcer/Injury that is Stageable at DC

Minimize the use of NA and Unknown responses. [...] Some items allow a Dash response. A dash (–) value indicates that no information is available. CMS expects dash use to be a rare occurrence.

When coding the patient's performance use the six-point scale or use one of the 4 "activity not attempted" codes (07, 09, 10, and 88) to specify the reason why an activity was not completed. [...]

• Code 07, Patient refused, if the patient refused to complete the activity and no other Performance or "activity not attempted" code is applicable.
• Code 09, Not applicable, if the patient did not attempt to perform the activity and did not perform this activity prior to the current illness, exacerbation, or injury.
• Code 10, Not attempted due to environmental limitations, if the patient did not attempt this activity due to environmental limitations. Examples include lack of equipment, and weather constraints.
• Code 88, Not attempted due to medical condition or safety concerns, if the activity was not attempted due to medical condition or safety concerns, and the activity was completed prior to the current illness, exacerbation, or injury.
• A Dash is a valid response for this item.