Ep.3: How to Prepare Your Staff For OASIS-E Upgrades

Linda Leekley (00:08):

Hey, welcome everyone to Home Care Pulse Vision, Care Leaders’ podcast. Amanda and I are so glad to have you all join us, this week for our third podcast of our season three. So we are, we are getting rolling with the season. I am Linda Leekley. I am the Chief Clinical Officer at Home Care Pulse. I oversee the training content that we, we put out for y’all. And Amanda, I wanna introduce yourself.

Amanda Sternklar (00:40):

Yeah. And, hi, I’m Amanda Sternklar. I’m our Director of marketing. And today we are joined by another HCP face Wendie Colvin.

Linda Leekley (00:49):

Yeah, Wendy has, uh, I’ll speak for her and then she can add anything that she wants to, but she, uh, she, uh, uh, started her nursing career in, uh, acute care as, as many nurses did, Uh, did some time in the er and, and then moved to post-acute care. She’s got a deep background in both home health and hospice, uh, from both a visiting nurse perspective, and then also management in both of those. So, uh, and now she currently is a colleague of ours at at Home Care Pulse, and, uh, is a, uh, nurse author. And, um, Wendy, we’re so happy to have you here to, to talk about every, what, what’s on everybody’s mind these days. OASIS-E right? <laugh>. So, welcome, Wendy.

Wendie Colvin (01:37):

Thanks. I hate talking about myself, so I’m glad that you did that. I appreciate that.

Linda Leekley (01:44):

Anytime.

Wendie Colvin (01:45):

Good intro.

Amanda Sternklar (01:47):

So, um, before we dive in, um, I’m sure a lot of folks on this call saw, we sent out an invitation ahead of time and invited folks to ask any questions, especially if they wouldn’t be here to, um, ask them themselves. And one of the questions we got was, can you, can you remind us all before we dive in, um, what Oasis E is and, and what’s going on with the industry in response?

Wendie Colvin (02:10):

Yeah. So it’s funny, like explaining what Oasis E is to someone who doesn’t understand home health gets really tricky, but in just making notes, like for this podcast, I kind of keyed the term, the data document. I think that’s a good description. So the Oasis is the data tracker for cms that every patient who has Medicare as their primary, primary insurance has to have on file. So it’s that first intensive as assessment that a clinician fills out on admission of a patient. It’s all of their demographics. It’s the current diagnosis for why they need home health. It’s their functional status. It’s just all these codes that help describe where that patient is at in their current health status. You code it all, put it down on paper, and that’s your oasis. So how a patient’s codes further categorize them determines what kind of interventions and goals are expected, um, and how your reimbursements are gonna be for that episode of care.

Wendie Colvin (03:16):

And then you fill out this oasis again at a transfer or a discharge with the ultimate hope that you’re showing that that population of patients, or even just that one patient in particular, has at least improved in their scores, especially functionally, right? So that hopefully you can get a better level of quality and sort of show that your care is worthy of a better, higher level of reimbursement. And Oasis is long when you see it again for the first time. It’s, it’s very daunting. Oasis e if you print it out on paper, it’s 31 pages. So like, stop and think about that. That’s a lot of pages. It is a book into itself. And if you work in home health, you know, that book backwards and forwards. You every chapter, every page is imprinted in your brain. You have that patient, you’re knocking on their door for the first time.

Wendie Colvin (04:16):

They’re, they’re walking to you answering the door, and you’re already trying to answer questions in Oasis. Are they short of breath? How many steps was that? I see four fall risks right now just between their driveway and what I’m eyeballing in the living room. So when you know a document, so well, it’s really hard to think of it changing. Like, what is Oasis? See, oh my gosh, what’s in it? I, I don’t know that one. How’s that gonna affect us? And if you’re management, what’s that gonna do for our reimbursements? What’s that gonna do for our accuracy? How do we train on this new unfamiliar thing? So it’s scary. I mean, it’s kind of, you try to sway people. Don’t panic at Medicare. Don’t let it give you fear, but it does, it gives you fear and anxiety just because it’s, it’s new.

Linda Leekley (05:06):

Thank you for that. Uh, great description of Oasis. Um, I like the term data document for sure. And obviously it’s, it’s, it’s a document that helps with both quality of care and reimbursement to essential pieces, uh, that everyone is focused on. But CMS makes these changes, right? And then they require so much work for both administrators to, to train on it and then field staff to learn these new ways of doing Oasis e It can feel frustrating. Um, and maybe it seems like CMS is just doing these arbitrary, uh, changes. So why did CMS make the change to asis e?

Wendie Colvin (05:49):

Yeah, I mean, I think even just educating myself to sort of give that answer, just because we’ve been developing so much Oasis e content, it’s all about the Impact Act and that that’s an old government act through CMS from 2014. It’s the improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation Act. So that was CMSs whole attempt to start standardizing the whole, what they consider post-acute spaces. So your rehabs, your sniffs, your home health, and your hospices, and how they all work together. So Oasis E is all about bringing in these spades that are part of the Impact Act. So what’s, what’s a spade? A spade is a standardized patient assessment data element. So it’s all the categories, the codes that they want, all of the postacute spaces to use, just to be able to monitor the same metrics, to keep a great eye on what type of quality care postacute as a whole is giving.

Wendie Colvin (06:54):

So Oasis e builds in all of those spades. Home Health was just kinda the next in line, the next due for this. And not everyone, you know, may even realize, but Oasis e has been cooking for quite a while. It was supposed to come out in 2020, but with the pandemic, they just halted it completely. So now released the form this year and 2023, obviously, as everyone listening probably knows, is when it’s actually coming out. But think of that, that’s nine years after the Impact Act even started. So Home Health, Sorry guys, you’re just, you’re just due for it. It’s year turn up to bat <laugh>.

Amanda Sternklar (07:33):

I think the biggest question on everybody’s mind right now is, is probably just what should I be doing now? You know, you said that we’ve been kind of in anticipation of this for, for so long, but given that it’s finally here for our, our last minute preparers, what should they be doing right now to make sure, um, that they and their staff are ready?

Wendie Colvin (07:52):

Yeah, I mean, I feel like that is a hard question. And let’s be real guys. Uh, we come up with some of these questions for you guys before the podcast just to kind of give a good idea of what our conversation is gonna lean to. And I was thinking about it like, it, it’s really two basic steps. Like step one is don’t panic. Try not to have that like tense fear reaction and just don’t be negative. I have two daughters and they do drive me crazy. They’re both in middle school and they’re so negative sometimes they just have that attitude. And I always catch myself saying, Chill out. Just chill out, stop. And that’s what you have to tell yourself, like, just don’t be negative. It’s okay <laugh>. And step two is just start educating yourself. Like dig into it now. Don’t wait, this is coming.

Wendie Colvin (08:41):

Don’t wait until December to find ways to learn Oasis e and to really investigate how you’re gonna over prepare yourself or your staff on what is in it. Do it now so you can take your time and be more thoughtful about the entire process and give yourself that time to absorb it. And I have a funny story because, so I’m coming from having done Oasis d and Oasis D one when I was in home health. So here’s an ER nurse brand new to Postacute world coming from, you know, er let’s be real. We don’t chart a lot. That’s just not our thing. So the very first admission that I did, the preceptor that I had, his name was Ray, and we had this C O P D patient. I’ll never forget it. So I’m in Ray’s car sitting there with him, and he hands me his laptop and here’s Oasis D and he’s like, Hey, all right, when scroll through that, that’s your admission, that’s what we’re gonna go in there and chart. And I said, What are you serious? And I, I completely thought that he was hazing me, that he was teasing me. And I start cracking up and I’m like, Ray, that’s not funny. Where’s the real chart? But like, it, it’s an animal. It’s a huge thing. So don’t, don’t create more stress for yourself by, by waiting to the last minute to prepare for it.

Linda Leekley (09:59):

Well, that’s really good advice. But in, in truth, I mean, it hasn’t been out that long has it? I mean, the final, uh, draft or whatever you will of Oasis, when did it Yeah,

Wendie Colvin (10:09):

Did it? I think it was July when they released the draft. So yeah, I mean, theoretically they have until the very last minute to still make little changes. But yeah, July I believe was when they actually came out with, um, you know, here, here is Oasis East. So again, everybody’s been anticipating this the whole year of, Come on guys, come on cms, Hurry has been, give it to us.

Linda Leekley (10:32):

So, so as, as everyone listening is trying to, to prepare their staff, um, you know, based on your expertise as both an educator and a home health administrator, how can agencies really do that best? Do that?

Wendie Colvin (10:48):

Yeah, I think you just need to understand that everybody on your staff is different. Just like you’re different in the way that you learn. And again, for this podcast, you can look up the types of learners, and I just kind of globally did that to kind of give you guys a better idea of it. But there, there’s four basic types. You can get in the weeds and pick out 12 types and, and really delineated if you want to. But basically all learners, you’re either visual, which pictures, this is the person that gets the highlighter out, makes everything pretty, the reader or the writer, they’re making flashcards, they’re taking notes on everything. They need a a reference material in front of them to be able to learn it. And then there’s kinesthetic that that’s the hands on. I’m gonna go talk to a patient and then that’s gonna make sense to me.

Wendie Colvin (11:39):

They need that practical real life application. And then there’s oral, that’s the person that needs to listen to someone, say it, discuss it, maybe even say it out loud in their own words. So you have to think about how your staff, which category did they fall into, and do you have tools that accommodate all of those types of learning? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I know me, I, I’m all of those types. I’m very visual, but I also know that I do well taking notes or making flashcards. And I also like realistically applying scenarios to education. So everybody tends to be a combination of that. It’s just kind of recognizing that, that no one has a one size fits all. So why would you only give them one course on Oasis E? Or why would you only have one meeting about it? And think that that was enough to accommodate how everyone learns. It is just such a, a vital, big document that, you know, needs to be accurate. So again, why would you not have as many tools as possible to really teach to it?

Linda Leekley (12:49):

You know, as an educator myself, I totally agree with you. Um, and I think a lot of people are sort of, uh, uh, combinations of the types of learners that you mentioned. Um, but okay, let’s say you’ve got a, a nursing supervisor or staff development coordinator listening to this and they’re thinking, Well, oh, how can I cater or dia or, or, or meet the needs of all those different types of learners. So have you seen in your research any especially helpful tools that you can direct, um, these folks to?

Wendie Colvin (13:23):

Yeah, I mean, I think that just from our team, we, we spend a lot of time investigating what is available and just what we could do in lieu of those tools and, and what is helpful that’s out there or that we could create, because everybody is busy. I mean, I get it. I, I live those roles, but you don’t wanna be too busy to train because then your learners can say, Well, I’m too busy to learn from you. Then it’s just making time to see what, what is available to you. Crosswalks absolutely love. We, we just made one, well, like a week ago, not even just realizing that that tool really is gonna be super helpful and fit a lot of the, those needs of different learners. But like to explain it, our crosswalk explains D one to E and it goes exact section by section.

Wendie Colvin (14:11):

Each element in the section, um, explains what’s either been brand newly created in Oasis E compared to D one completely deleted, which isn’t much, There wasn’t a whole lot taken away or what’s been updated. Um, and it’s color coded. It’s just this four page document. And, and it’s a really good concise, again, visual that we made just to give to staff as here’s your, your first cut and dry everything that ha has been updated, D one to E and it’s not just us. Tons of companies are making that kind of a crosswalk. And I think those are a great first line, super helpful tool. Um, I mean, otherwise just highlighting either real patient examples or sample patients, I feel like that is always helpful for clinicians just to understand, well, what if I get into X situation, how do I deal with that? So there’s a book, and I’m sure some of you guys listening, hopefully a lot of you have heard of it.

Wendie Colvin (15:12):

It’s really popular with Home Health. It’s called Oasis Cancers. That was also another tool that, um, myself and the other nurse author Maria that wrote all of the Oasis e, um, module courses. We both asked for that book, you know, had it on preorder for weeks, because that’s a book that has tons of patient scenarios, literally by each Oasis e section, just so you can pull from that and, and use those patient scenarios as in this situation, this is how you should code this item. And that’s super helpful as far as a tool. And you know, these scenarios, that’s the thing. Why don’t you take some of the scenarios, even if it’s just breathing from Oasis answers from the book, and I’m pointing, if you guys can look at me because it’s over here. Here’s the book in my office. Talk about that in a team meeting.

Wendie Colvin (16:04):

Just that’s your opener. Talk about a scenario and just kind of have it make sense to everyone. Most of your clinicians, if they’re not having to fill out Oasis, they’re in there and they’re still reading it just to get that good view of that patient. So everyone in your office is familiar with it. And you know, again, catering to different types of learners, Okay? Discuss the patient scenario in a meeting or make a handout or type it into an email. You know, here’s a, a fake patient, let’s score their mood and I’ll give you the answers either again by an answer on a handout or by a email reply, or we’ll discuss it at the meeting and just have your staff practice in that manner based on a scenario. Give, give them an actual fictious patient to do something with to get that into their brain.

Wendie Colvin (16:57):

How to score it, how to code, why it’s important, why you’re bringing it up. Another thing is just giving things away. Like we mentioned the crosswalk, laminate the crosswalk, find what you can, that’s a, a paper tool and just, you know, point it out, pass it to your staff. I was always really big and my staff would laugh at me in hospice. It was purple folders for whatever reason. I just chose the color purple. And I had paper three prong folders, and I would always print out little things and I thought were important and make you put it in your folder, Put this in your purple folder. And everyone would laugh, but they would keep their purple folder. And whether or not they drew on what was there, because it was on paper, they still understood that the topic was important and that it was gonna warrant a discussion or some sort of follow up later.

Wendie Colvin (17:45):

So again, handing tangible things, just one more tool. The other thing too, right now we’re doing a podcast, set up a conference call or do a 1530 minute zoom type chat for your staff, because let’s be real, it’s hard to get everyone in the same room. You might be too busy during team to actually dedicate too much time, will make time completely separately just for the clinicians that fill out Oasis and read from the Oasis Answers book and pick some scenarios that way, dedicate that time. Now it’s October, you could start that tomorrow. The other thing is just the, the CMS Oasis guidance manual. Making that available I think is huge and be realistic. It’s, I think 430 pages. Don’t give everyone a paper copy of it, but remind them, Hey, download that on your device, save it on your tablet, or save it on your laptop.

Wendie Colvin (18:42):

Just because there’s also patient scenarios in there, and there’s huge, obviously Medicare specific language in that document. So if someone really does get stuck, they can search through that bible of guidance. It’s, it’s just all of those little tools and those ways to educate, you know, go out, find what you know is gonna work well for the staff that you have and keep giving it to them. Um, and the, the only last thing that I thought of too, which I think is important in thinking about tools, and it’s nothing that we can really give, you know, with hcp, but creating preceptors just with you guys locally, if you have clinicians that you know are just great at documentation or they explain things together, have them help you. If you’re a training manager or an administrator, you don’t have to be the, the only educator. If, if your home health agency doesn’t have a dedicated educator, pick some staff members and make them preceptors.

Wendie Colvin (19:44):

I used to try really hard to be approachable and to tell my staff, no matter where I work, like, don’t ever feel stupid coming to me. There’s no stupid question. So even though I work to be approachable, I was still in charge. Not everybody’s gonna wanna hear it from the person in charge. They may still take that education smile and nod their head at me, but they may learn better when they’re in the field doing it with a peer. So make those preceptors and have people go out together. And I know that it, it costs more and it’s not effective. But I used to send clinicians out two at a time to do admissions when they were new, because otherwise you need a backup. It’s such a big document. The accuracy is important. Even if you only do it once or twice, you can have that team approach to going and getting used to the process of Oasis e I think that’s a great idea to trial again, even if it’s only once or twice, just to really hit home with the importance of filling out that document appropriately.

Linda Leekley (20:50):

Wendy, that’s great. Um, you’ve mentioned Oasis answers a lot. Is it, is the book handy enough where you could hold it up and show folks the cover?

Wendie Colvin (21:00):

It is, it was on top

Linda Leekley (21:03):

<laugh>,

Wendie Colvin (21:04):

So it’s tiny. If you guys can see that. It’s like half a little half size book. It’s thick and it’s heavy, but yeah, it, it’s just put out by the Oasis Answers Company and it’s a great resource. I mean, it’s, it’s CMS language, but it’s readable and it, it’s just builds on all of the examples that CMS tries to put in their 400 plus page manual. But for whatever reason, it’s just a little more realistic. And again, having more examples just puts it into a better perspective than the one or two you get in the CMS version.

Linda Leekley (21:41):

And the other thing I wanted to ask, uh, the crosswalk that we created, it also has page numbers from that 400 page document dust net for each, uh, section.

Wendie Colvin (21:52):

Yes. Yeah, we built that in so that you know where to go for the corresponding section in, in the CMS manual to get mm-hmm. <affirmative> further information and to actually see the exact descriptor of the line by line.

Amanda Sternklar (22:05):

Sounds great. I have a couple more questions for you, uh, but I wanna make sure we have time to get to any audience questions that we have. So I’ll give you, uh, anyone listening live a, uh, like five minute warning to, you can either put your questions in the chat, um, or if you’d like to unmute and ask your questions out loud, you can raise your hand. Um, and in a couple minutes I’ll unmute you and we can, we can hear from you. But Wendy, you all, while everybody is, we’ve been giving folks a lot of information, so while they’re all formulating their questions, aside from the education that you and, and the rest of our clinical team have put together, I definitely wanna make sure we include that crosswalk document on the download page for this episode on home care pulse.com/podcast. Cuz I think that’ll be really, really helpful to a lot of folks. What’s the biggest thing clinical managers and administrators should do to make the transition to oacc successful?

Wendie Colvin (22:59):

I think it’s just important, again, to, to have more than one thing to give your staff to always have as many training materials as you can, just adapting to how your staff learns and find all these additional tools you have to make that just part of your process. It, it just can’t be an option. Like I said, you can’t have one, one thing, there’s this old quote that my, um, did not come from my sixth grade language arts teacher, Linda’s much smarter than me. And she told me it was actually the founder of, um, Taoism that had this quote. I thought it was a guy last name of man in the 19 hundreds, but again, Linda smarter than me, but the quote, my sixth grade language arts teacher gave us this quote and made us draw a picture of our interpretation of it. It was like a whole class discussion, but this quote is stuck with me for so long, and I used it all the time.

Wendie Colvin (23:54):

It’s kind of cheesy, but it’s, if you give man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach Amanda Fish, you feed him for the rest of his life. So why would you not teach in the right way so that your staff can just always have that skill and always have that understanding in this case of Oasis E. So they’re always gonna do it the right way. And that’s the thing, you need to be that leader. And even if it’s you making these preceptors or kind of delegating a little bit to get the job done, that’s okay too. As long as someone is overlying and, and paying attention to how everyone is responding to that learning process and adjusting it, finding more tools as they need to. That’s what’s important that, that’s actual teaching. And, and most importantly too, you need to ask your staff like, did you get it?

Wendie Colvin (24:47):

Did I do a good job showing it to you? Like, do you understand? It’s never assuming that Oh, yep, gave them that one course. They’re good to go. All right, let’s fill out Oasis e, we’ve got 10 admissions next week. Don’t assume that one way of educating teaches all the learners and don’t assume that they’re understanding it until you ask them. It’s just being proactive to make sure that no matter what tools you are providing, no matter where they’re coming from, that they’re effective, they’re actually working, that person is actually able to go out and fish, or in this case fill out Oasis e accurately and by themselves.

Linda Leekley (25:27):

Thank you for that, Wendy. Um, a couple of questions that I thought about, uh, just to remind folks, Oasis, Oasis e goes into effect, when is it? January 1st?

Wendie Colvin (25:44):

January 1st. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it’s January 1st, 2023. But again, I think CMS still technically has the option to make little tweaks and changes, um, up until, you know, end of December if for some reason they decided to make some sort of change.

Linda Leekley (26:02):

And then the other question I thought about was, um, as you were going through ACC and, you know, thinking back to your knowledge of oa c, d and D one, what do you have certain sections that kind of go, made you go, Oh, okay. Or, you know, that you would point out as as really different or, uh,

Wendie Colvin (26:25):

Do you know what I’m getting at? Yeah, so mood and cognition is a huge focus, which I think is great. Um, it, there’s gonna be actual mental, mini mental status exams that are required. Just sort of painting that better picture of, again, how the patient is functioning and, and what their ation is like. I think in the older Oasis it just wasn’t there and it was always, you know, oh, now I gotta put that in my big admission note or I’ve gotta qualify it myself manually. But there’s so much that is built in, especially with mood and cognition, uh, nutritional status, functional status, They’ve all been updated and things have been added, but those two sections in particular are, are great. It just more intuitive to really use all of that data without maybe necessarily having to have some huge, again, manual note that you’re writing. Right, Which, and there’s more, um, options to answer of patient refuses to answer or patient unable to answer than there ever was before. Which is great too because a lot of times you would just kind of have to pick the best answer cuz you can’t leave it blank, but you have more of those options now with Oasis E, which is fabulous.

Linda Leekley (27:39):

Do you anticipate it being, uh, more time consuming, less time consuming, or probably the same as Oasis D one to complete?

Wendie Colvin (27:50):

I think the number that they give, it’s around 140 between what was updated of the items. But when you go and and compare D one to E like D is 30 and a half pages E is 31, it’s kind of apples to oranges. But I would think Oasis e is gonna be faster because it’s more intuitive and because you can actually have a, a bigger bank of answers to choose from, which in reality is easier because you’re actually able to give the patient more options to say, or if they can’t say, you can just boom, pick that and not have to catch up with yourself later qualifying why maybe one section was scored oddly because you couldn’t say patient wouldn’t answer that.

Linda Leekley (28:37):

Mm mm-hmm <affirmative>. Okay. Well that’s, uh, that sounds comforting in a way, huh? Yeah,

Wendie Colvin (28:45):

Don’t tell your staff it’ll take five hours. I don’t think it will. I promise. <laugh>,

Amanda Sternklar (28:52):

Um, we’ll have folks coming back to this, uh, this call about that if

Wendie Colvin (28:58):

Said it was easier, she lied.

Amanda Sternklar (29:02):

Just a reminder, folks, if you have any questions, there’s a chat off the side. Uh, if you’re feeling shy, you’d like me to read your question out loud. Um, you can also raise your hand and I’ll unmute you if you have any other questions that you’d like to ask Wendy,

Linda Leekley (29:15):

Or comments, you know, is it comforting to you hearing this sort of intro to a c e? Um, are you feeling more nervous, less nervous? We’d love to hear from you even if you don’t have a question.

Wendie Colvin (29:30):

I think really though that word, I mean that word intuitive, our other nurse author, like I said, Maria, we both keep saying that because it really just flows better. The, these are definitely good changes in Oasis E and again, that’s why it’s not worth being negative over because it’s a big change for the industry, but it, it is very obvious to see that it’s gonna be a, a change positively.

Amanda Sternklar (29:57):

Awesome. Um, Wendy, while, um, while folks are thinking of any questions they have, um, I know that you’ll, you and Maria will be sharing more of your Oasis, uh, e expertise with our audience. Can you tell us a little more about, uh, where they can find that?

Wendie Colvin (30:16):

Yeah. Um, so your, the Oasis e webinar that we’re having is gonna be next Thursday on, um, October 13th. And we’re gonna go through and have more questions answered, um, and just get a better detail into really what is in the modules and what the changes are otherwise. Um, on CMS website, there’s, uh, the actual, it’s a draft right now, again, technically I OA C because they still have the option to update it, but if you just go to cms.gov, I think it’s slash Home Health, then there’s links right there. Um, and, and CMS is just now kind of starting to also pass out their own, uh, schedule of webinars in the, I have not seen any informational sheets either, but our purpose next week on Thursday is to sort of start that webinar and continue this more clinical discussion of Oasis e just to pass out a little more of a better idea of, of what is in that draft that’s available on the CMS site.

Linda Leekley (31:23):

So would you recommend that not just, uh, clinical managers, but also, um, field nurses and therapists, uh, register for the webinar to get a sort of a running start in acc?

Wendie Colvin (31:38):

Yeah, I, I mean, and that’s the thing, even, you know, a, a business office manager who has, has to look at Oasis here and there and make sure it’s submitted, anybody in the agency would probably benefit from just hearing that discussion to get into those nitty gritty details of the actual modules and the actual updates versus deleted items that are in Oasis E. So we would love to have any, any role come to that. Absolutely. Just because like I said, it’ll be a more detailed conversation of what clinically has changed in that document.

Linda Leekley (32:13):

And if they can’t make that webinar, can they get the slides later?

Wendie Colvin (32:20):

Yes, Yes, absolutely. And, um, the crosswalk that we were bragging on <laugh> is kind of be available during that webinar as well. That’s something that we’d like to pass out to everyone, so we’re gonna kind of be speaking to exactly how we’ve outlined the crosswalk as well and then passing it out to everyone. So yeah, absolutely. The, the slides that we’re gonna have for the webinar itself, um, can be emailed if you register, you know, can’t make it, but still, but still wanna see what we’ve discussed so that that’s an option as well.

Linda Leekley (32:51):

Okay,

Amanda Sternklar (32:52):

Awesome. Um, and even if you’re not able to make the webinar alive, um, but you’re listening to this before the 13th, good for you. Uh, you can just register for the webinar and you’ll receive the recording right after the webinar concludes. Um,

Linda Leekley (33:10):

So Wendy, you know, we’ve talked about OA ACCE training being essential in, you know, a lot of different, uh, tools and methods that you’ve, that you’ve discussed. Um, so whether an agency creates their own training in house, or maybe they hire a home health consultant to come in and do Oasis e training, uh, or they partner with a training vendor like, like hcp. Um, we have, you and Maria have been busy building or writing, uh, our Oasis training here. Can you tell, um, folks just a little bit about what we are going to be offering for AOA toc?

Wendie Colvin (33:49):

Yeah, we’re sort of trying to go with that whole idea of having, having different learning options for everybody. So right now we already have available and launched, um, the Oasis D one to e updates course. So that is one e-learning course dedicated just to exactly what are the changes between D one to E. So we felt like that was our perfect first step because for all the experience current clinicians that you have, that that’s the quick explanation of this is what to expect in conjunction to what you’re used to. We also have an Oasis e Basics course that’s in development. It, it’s almost ready for launch. And that course, um, just gets more into the regulatory aspects of why exactly are we collecting these data points, What are the real categories, how does that affect reimbursement? Why is accuracy so key for clinicians? Um, and it’s written, again, anyone can take that.

Wendie Colvin (34:51):

It’s super appropriate for any role to take that course, clinical speaking. Um, but then the other thing that we did was we actually went module by module. So each section of Oasis Nutrition wound functional, it’s all in its own unit. Um, so it’s a multiple hour contact hour that you’ll receive after the clinician takes each module, but it’s sectioned out. So you can take your time and just take mood one day and kind of skip around if you want to. And the module, my module we wrote differently, so it follows FIC obviously, but it’s Nurse Petra who is a, a nurse preceptor and she’s orienting a brand new nurse, um, his name is Marcus, as to how to fill out Oasis e. So it’s just more realistic and it’s following Petra’s real life explanation to Marcus. As someone who doesn’t know anything about Oasis or about these new sections, this is how you fill it out.

Wendie Colvin (35:50):

And there’s one patient that we’ve had along that continuum in those modules, um, named Miss Valerie. So the, that little trio of people is within our module by module, and that should be out by the end of the year so that learners can take advantage of that and again, be ready to go by that first quarter in 2023 when you guys will be required to use oae. So those eLearning courses on top of the crosswalk, on top of, within all of our courses, we’re referencing all of those CMS guidance manual pages. So you also have another resource to go to. Um, it’s kind of where we’ve started, but again, the webinar next week doing the podcast, we’re still trying to think of other tools and things that we can have available just to again, train all those different types of learners that we know are out there.

Linda Leekley (36:45):

Thank you.

Amanda Sternklar (36:48):

Um, I know a lot of folks are, uh, looking forward to those courses and hopefully we’ll be able to help them with the crosswalk In the meantime, um, we’ll leave the, the comments and I’ll keep an eye on attendees for a little while longer in case anyone has any last minute questions. Um, in the meantime, if you’re listening to this as a recorded podcast later, this is just your reminder that you can get all these episodes a week early by attending Vision Live. Um, we meet live every other Tuesday at 2:00 PM Eastern Standard time, um, and you could be one of the folks in the audience asking questions of the experts that we have on the show. Um, if you’d like to download this episode, uh, and any of our past episodes, you can go to homecare pulse.com/podcast, um, or check it out wherever you would like to listen to podcasts. Um, if you’d like to get in contact with my, myself or Linda, um, about being on the show, if you have a story you’d really like to share or just any feedback about the podcast, um, I know I’m mostly, uh, reachable on LinkedIn and I believe Linda is as well. Any other way folks can reach you, Linda?

Linda Leekley (37:58):

Um, my email, uh, if you like, which is my name, Linda [email protected].

Amanda Sternklar (38:04):

Awesome. And Wendy, if, Oh, go

Linda Leekley (38:07):

Ahead. Yeah, no, go ahead. I was just gonna ask Wendy the same.

Amanda Sternklar (38:09):

Yeah, and Wendy, if they, they wanna get in touch with you to talk a little more about Oasis, what’s the best place to reach you?

Wendie Colvin (38:15):

Yeah, same thing. LinkedIn is fine. I’ll admit I’m not great at LinkedIn. I’m, I’m trying, but email is probably easiest. And that’s just Wendy [email protected]. But I do spell Wendy strangely. It’s w e n d i e, so you gotta remember that part. <laugh>,

Amanda Sternklar (38:30):

I disagree with you not being great at LinkedIn. I de like, I, I suggest just following Wendy anyway versus deeply enjoyable posts. Um, alright, I think that’s it for any questions we have. You have our contact information if anything comes up after this podcast. Thank you everyone so much for joining us for Vision Live,

Linda Leekley (38:50):

And we appreciate it. Take me time outta your day and thank you Wendy, so much for all the valuable information that you share. See you all next time.

Amanda Sternklar (38:59):

All right, bye everyone.