December 6 2025
OASIS Answers
Categories: HOPE

Assessing Pain in HOPE

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

Overview of All Items

Section J: Health Conditions of the HOPE Guidance Manual is designed with the intention of incorporating information from the patient assessment to document the physical symptoms of a patient’s pain. Let’s review key guidance for each of the following items used to assess patient pain on the HOPE tool.

J0900. Pain Screening

This is a 3-part question collected at HOPE Admission to assess the patient for the presence of pain. It is to be based on what is determined during the assessment visit and/or included in the clinical record. Clinicians should not use resources external of the clinical record to answer this item.
For J0900B. Date of first screening of pain, clinicians should enter the date of the first screening of pain that is documented in the clinical record.
When assessing a patient’s pain severity in J0900C, keep in mind that if a patient gives a range of pain severity then clinicians should indicate the highest level of severity experienced during the visit.

J0905. Pain Active Problem

This is a yes/no item to determine if pain is an active problem for the patient.
Code “Yes” would be appropriate for scenarios where the patient may not be experiencing pain during the assessment but reports pain still as an active problem.
Guidance tells us that, in general, clinical documentation that the patient is currently taking pain medication is evidence that pain is an active problem for the patient and should be coded as “Yes” for J0905.

J0910. Comprehensive Pain Assessment

This is another multi-part question the is used to address multiple aspects of pain, beyond determination of the pain presence and severity. The assessing clinician should check all characteristics that were included in the pain assessment.
Any of the seven characteristics should be selected if the clinician made an attempt to gather information from the patient/caregiver, regardless of whether the patient/caregiver was able to provide a clear response.
For non-verbal patients, clinical notes about the assessment of nonverbal indicators of pain for any of the seven characteristics are acceptable resources.

For more information on HOPE Guidance, the HOPE in Action Training for hospice providers focuses on the essential elements that drive HOPE accuracy, compliance, and confidence.

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