April 28 2025
OASIS

What are the OASIS Static Q&As? 

by Kerry Termine, DPT, HCS-D, COS-C

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) maintains the OASIS Static Q&As found on the QIES Technical Support Office (QTSO) Home Health Agency (HHA) Providers References & Manuals webpage. The most recent set are under posted under the category of “OASIS-E-1 Q&A’s”.

These are a set of frequently asked questions that provide additional guidance to home health agencies (HHAs) to help them comply with OASIS data collection requirements. These OASIS Q&As are organized into the four following categories:

Category 1: Applicability
Category 2: Comprehensive Assessment
Category 3: Follow-up Assessments
Category 4: OASIS Dat Set – Forms and Items

The CMS Q&As contain additional guidance, that is not included in the OASIS Guidance Manual.

Category 1 contains questions about applicability (i.e., what patients require OASIS data collection).
Category 2 provides guidance on the comprehensive assessment; specifically Start of Care, Resumption of Care and Discharges.
Category 3 includes questions about the follow-up assessments (Recertifications and Other-follow-ups).
Category 4 includes OASIS Data set form guidance and questions pertaining to OASIS item-specific guidance.

Unlike the quarterly versions of the OASIS Q&As that are published by CMS generally every January, April, July and October, the static Q&As are updated less frequently but contain a larger volume of Q&As that have been collected by CMS and are still relevant to OASIS data collection. The last update to the static Q&As was November 2024.

As OASIS guidance, including guidance related to OASIS all-payer data collection, is continually being refined, HHAs are encouraged to follow closely the updated in the OASIS Guidance Manual, the static OASIS Q&As, and the quarterly OASIS Q&As.

Learn more on this topic and other cutting edge OASIS guidance, including all-payer OASIS data collection, in the OASIS Answers, Inc.  Quarterly OASIS Update webinars. The next webinar is Wednesday, July 16, 2025.

Questions related to OASIS coding and documentation of the OASIS responses can be sent to the Home Health Quality Help Desk: homehealthqualityquestions@cms.hhs.gov.