Let's applaud CMS for making a much-needed change to the process measure for fall risk assessment.  Agencies spent a couple of years caught between a rock and a hard place, trying to complete the OASIS fall risk assessment question without cheating while trying not to penalize themselves for something erroneous and out of their control. What a relief to have this issue finally fixed. CMS made the unusual step of changing a measure mid-cycle (along with several others) with last week's update of Home Health Compare.

I got to wondering, now that bedfast and chairfast patients are excluded from the process measure and patients less than 65 years of age are included, will this have any impact to the fall risk assessment tool your agency is using? The one in current use by many agencies is likely validated for bed/chair fast patients, and/or those 65 years of age and older. I'm interested in learning how your agency has responded to the change. BTW, I can hardly wait to see how scores will change now.

For additional information on this issue, please refer to the CMS Technical Documentation.