10.4 In-progress updates through our collaboration with CMS on post acute care assessments

Through a collaboration with Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), we are updating the current LOINC representation of CMS Long-term Post Acute Care (LTPAC) assessments and creating new LOINC representations for CMS PAC assessments not currently represented in LOINC. The work includes the Nursing Home Minimum Data Set (MDS), Long-term Care Hospital CARE Data Set (LCDS), In-Patient Rehabilitation Facility Patient Assessment Instrument (IRF-PAI), and the Home Health Outcome and Assessment Information Set (OASIS).

Our work on this content began in August 2016, and starting with LOINC version 2.63 (December 2017), new and updated content represents current versions of all four CMS LTPAC assessments. As we continue to collaborate with CMS, we plan to release the LOINC representation for each new version of these assessments prior to its CMS final publication date so that the LOINC content will be available for implementation at the time of final publication.

In undertaking this work, the LOINC Committee agreed to adopt a unified Method of CMS Assessment across all instruments, rather than having a Method specific to the assessment instrument that was first modeled in LOINC. This change encourages and facilitates re-use of assessment variables across instruments where appropriate.

We have also enhanced the search functionality in RELMA and on SearchLOINC with links to the CMS assessment item codes that are searchable as “Related Codes”. For example, searching “RelatedCodes: BB0700” will return the LOINC term that represents the CMS assessment item “Expression of ideas and wants”.