All team members at skilled nursing facilities have a stake in getting the ever-evolving MDS stipulations right. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is collecting more information than ever before, and they’re studying it for patterns more rigorously than ever.

Consider MDS processes another example of high-risk management, and it shouldn’t be taken lightly. That’s the view of Leah Klusch, the executive director of The Alliance Training Center, who sat down with McKnight’s Long-Term Care News Executive Editor James M. Berklan recently to discuss all things MDS.

She re-emphasizes the importance of making the data reproducible. She discusses the latest coding changes in version 1.19.1 of the MDS. She warns that not filling out the section on the mood interview could cost providers $40 to $50 per patient day. She dotes over providers’ needs like any 57-year nursing veteran might.

Beyond that, Klusch already has had a peek at a next iteration of the MDS and comments how she thinks it will bring even more crystallization to the nursing home assessment and admissions process.