MDS Clinical Volume Report and MDS Volume Report — Frequently Asked Questions

My facility has a very high number of MDS Residents relative to the reported Number of OSCAR Beds and OSCAR Census. How can this be?

A likely cause is that because discharge records are not being reported for some of your residents, they continue to appear as active residents. Over time, as new residents are admitted into a facility and discharged without discharges being reported, the number of MDS Residents appearing in this report will continually grow. Also, missing discharges will be recorded in the Late or Missing Transactions (Assessments) column. These distortions in the data are reasons it is crucial for facilities to report discharges in a timely fashion.

The volume at our facility changed significantly from one quarter to the next. Why?

Such variation may be the result of legitimate changes in the number of required assessments for your facility, improvements or deterioration in your facility's reporting compliance, or the result of the timing of how transactions are reported into the MDS National Repository.

Why does my facility have a large number of Late or Missing Transactions (Assessments)?

Observation of the data across facilities and states suggests that some late transactions (assessments) result from the failure to submit a discharge tracking record. However, there may be other clinical assessments that your facility failed to report. Also, inconsistent or incorrect reporting of resident identifier information can lead to an indicated Late or Missing transaction count. An example of this is when the gender code on prior assessments are different than the gender code on subsequent assessments. When gender codes are different, subsequent assessments are not matched to the prior assessment, which causes the prior assessments to appear as late.

What does it mean that my facility has a very low Volume Ratio?

A very low volume ratio, in particular, relative to other facilities, may indicate that a facility is not submitting all required transactions (assessments) for its residents. A frequent type of missing transaction (assessment) is the discharge.

What does it mean that my facility has a very high Volume Ratio?

A very high Volume Ratio may indicate that your facility is processing a relatively high number of Medicare assessments. If this is the case, then your facility's required reporting is much more frequent than the reporting required for a facility with little or no Medicare assessment activity. The final column in the MDS Volume Report, % PPS Assessments, is designed to allow you to relate your facility's Medicare-related assessment activity to its overall volume ratio.

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