OASIS · CMS Q&As
M1620: CMS OASIS Q&As
2 questions CMS has answered, quoted whole from the CMS OASIS Q&As.
M1620 on the OASIS item lookup
M1620. How should you respond to this item if the patient is on a bowel-training program? How would that be documented in the clinical record?
There is no assumed presence of bowel incontinence simply because a patient is on a regular bowel program. The patient's elimination status must be completely evaluated as part of the comprehensive assessment, and the OASIS items answered with the specific findings for the patient.
[Q&A EDITED 05/22; REVIEWED 09/09]
M1620. Please clarify what timeframe we are looking at when assessing bowel incontinence in M1620 - Bowel Incontinence Frequency. Our agency has been told the start of care (SOC) is day 0 and we look back 7 days to answer this question. Is that correct? What about this scenario? At the SOC assessment no bowel incontinence is reported for the past 7 days, at a repeat visit within the 5 day window, the patient has experienced bowel incontinence since the SOC. Can we amend M1620 to response 1 or response 2 and also update the M0090 - Date Assessment Completed date to reflect this additional assessment information?
The time period under consideration is the day of assessment and relevant past. This lookback is directed by Response options "0-Very rarely or never has bowel incontinence" and "1-Less than once weekly." Considering these two options, the assessing clinician would need to consider bowel incontinence that was experienced beyond the past 7 days. The assessing clinician must use clinical judgment to determine how far into the past would be relevant to this home care admission. The SOC comprehensive assessment must be completed on or within 5 days after the SOC date, M0030. In the scenario above, the assessing clinician may elect to re-assess bowel incontinence within the allowed timeframe and change their original response as well as M0090 - Date Assessment Completed.
[Q&A EDITED 10/23; EDITED 05/22; ADDED 06/14; Previously CMS Qtrly Q&A 07/13 Q13]
Source: CMS OASIS Q&As: Category 4 - OASIS Data Set: Forms and Items (March 2026), text extracted from the PDF with pdftotext, retrieved 2026-10-09. Works of the US Government are in the public domain.
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