OASIS-E Spotlight: Total Severity Score

August 21, 2023

Making sense of CMS guidelines is more challenging than ever after the launch of OASIS-E and the abundance of changes that go along with it. KanTime’s OASIS Spotlight series will spotlight specific OASIS items to simplify the ruling and help clinicians significantly improve their understanding of OASIS so they can move forward with accuracy.

D0160: Total Severity Score (for PHQ-2 to 9)

The Total Severity Score is a summary of the frequency scores on the PHQ-2 to 9 that indicates the extent of potential depression symptoms.

    • Use the scoring guide to complete scoring: Scoring Rules: Patient Mood Interview Total Severity Score D0160.
    • The maximum patient score is 27 (3 x 9).

Time points:

    • Start of Care
    • Resumption of Care
    • Discharge from agency

Per the OASIS Guidance Manual

Scoring Rules: Patient Mood Interview Total Severity Score D0160
If only the PHQ-2 is completed because both D0150A2 and D0150B2 are coded 0 or 1, add the numeric scores from these two frequency items and enter the value in D0160.

If items D0150C through D0150I were asked, calculate the Total Severity Score:

    • Item D0160 is used to store the total severity score for the Patient Mood Interview.
    • The score in item D0160 is based upon the sum of the values that are contained in the following nine items: D0150A2, D0150B2, D0150C2, D0150D2, D0150E2, D0150F2, D0150G2, D0150H2, and D0150I2. These are referred to as the “items in Column 2”, below.
    • The following rules explain how to compute the score that is placed in item D0160.
      • These rules consider the “number of missing items in Column 2” which is the number of items in Column 2 that are skipped.
      •  An item in Column 2 is skipped if the corresponding item in Column 1 was equal to 9 (no response) or a dash (symptom presence not assessed).
    • If all of the items in Column 2 have a value of 0, 1, 2, or 3 (i.e., they all contain non-missing values), then item D0160 is equal to the simple sum of those values.
    • If any of the items in Column 2 are blank (or skipped), then omit their values when computing the sum.
    • If the number of missing items in Column 2 is equal to one, then compute the simple sum of the eight items in Column 2 that have non-missing values, multiply the sum by 9/8 (1.125), and place the result rounded to the nearest integer in item D0160.
    • If the number of missing items in Column 2 is equal to two, then compute the simple sum of the seven items in Column 2 that have non-missing values, multiply the sum by 9/7 (1.286), and place the result rounded to the nearest integer in item D0160.
    • If the number of missing items in Column 2 is equal to three or more, then item D0160 must equal [99].

Stay tuned for next Monday’s spotlight so your practice can continue to stay ahead of the curve and provide elite patient care through the Oasis E changes.

We provide clinicians that are part of the Kantime enterprise system with links to the guidance from CMS for each individual OASIS item.

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