Quarterly OASIS Update

LINDA KRULISH

President
PT MHS COS-C

Linda is a physical therapist with a Masters in Health Sciences. She has worked in home health since 1988 and has been a nationally recognized expert on OASIS since its national implementation in 1999. Linda serves the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and its contractors, assisting in quality measures development, data set refinement and maintenance and updating of guidance manuals and other key provider education resources for the Post-Acute Care settings. She provides oversight and subject matter expertise to oversee contracts for the CMS Home Health Value-Based Purchasing Technical Assistance work, as well as for CMS’s Quality Reporting Programs form Home Health, Hospice, Inpatient Rehab Facilities and Long-Term Care Hospitals. She served as the President and a Founding Member of the OASIS Certificate and Competency Board (OCCB) and continues to oversee the COS-C Exam as Chair of the Exam Review Taskforce. Linda is the President and Founder of OASIS Answers, Inc. 

MARIAN ESSEY

Senior Director of Quality & Innovation
RN BSN COS-C

Marian is a registered nurse with over 25 years of experience in home health, hospice, and community-based services.  Marian works in conjunction with CMS leaders in the support of quality measure development and monitoring, public reporting and confidential reporting of quality measures across post-acute settings. Marian served as the Director for the Home Health Quality Improvement Organization Support Center (QIOSC) for Pennsylvania's Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) and served as Director for the Home Health Quality Improvement National Campaign to reduce avoidable hospitalizations. As a recognized expert in developing and supporting quality improvement activities at the local, state and national levels, Marian has served on and led numerous CMS technical expert panels and quality improvement committees. She currently supports OAI’s Post-Acute Care initiatives, including providing subject matter expertise to OAI’s CMS contract work supporting the Home Health Value-Based Purchasing project, and the Hospice Outcomes and Patient Evaluation (HOPE) instrument and quality measure development work.  Marian holds the Certificate for OASIS Specialist-Clinical (COS-C) designation and serves as Senior Director of quality and Innovation with OASIS Answers, Inc.

MEGAN BERNIER

Post-Acute Care Clinical Manager
MSPT COS-C

Megan is a physical therapist with a Masters in Physical Therapy. Megan serves as an expert in data collection guidance for the PAC assessment instruments and is a lead for the CMS QRP helpdesks for home health, SNF, IRF, and LTCH. Megan shares her vast knowledge in data collection expertise in presenting education for CMS and OAI trainings.    She has worked in the home health industry since 2010 as a field clinician, as well as in supervisory and administrative positions supporting home health quality improvement, regulatory compliance, clinical documentation, and operations. Megan currently supports OAI’s post-acute care work with provider education, guidance manual work, and CMS Help Desks support that provides guidance on data collection of OASIS, the MDS, the IRF-PAI and the LTCH CARE Data Set. She has a passion and appreciation for the critical need for OASIS accuracy and is a knowledgeable and engaging national OASIS educator. Megan holds the Certificate for OASIS Specialist-Clinical (COS-C) designation and serves as a Post-Acute Care Clinical Manager with OASIS Answers, Inc.

KERRY TERMINE

Clinical Consultant
DPT BCHH-C COS-C

Kerry is a physical therapist with a Doctorate in Physical Therapy. She has worked in the home health industry since 2007, as a field clinician, as well as in roles supporting coding and documentation for compliance and quality. She has over 10 years of experience conducting detailed reviews of clinical documentation for home health and hospice providers, focusing on OASIS and diagnosis coding accuracy, as well as regulatory compliance and documentation to support Medicare coverage. Kerry is a certified coder and an AHIMA Approved ICD-10-CM Trainer. She holds the Certificate for OASIS Specialist-Clinical (COS-C) designation and is a Clinical Consultant with OASIS Answers, Inc.