Research Data Assistance Center (ResDAC)
1-888-9RESDAC (1-888-973-7322)
resdac@umn.edu
- What is the MDS data?
- Who is MDS data collected on?
- How often is the MDS data collected?
- What type of data are collected as part of the MDS?
- What years of MDS data are available from CMS?
- I'm interested in all MDS assessment data for a period of 6 months, how should I request the data?
- How can the MDS data be extracted?
- What is the output format and media type of the NH MDS?
The Long Term Care Minimum Data Set (MDS) is a standardized, primary screening and assessment tool of health status which forms the foundation of the comprehensive assessment for all residents of long-term care facilities certified to participate in Medicare or Medicaid.
MDS data is collected on ALL residents of long-term care facilities certified to participate in Medicare or Medicaid. In other words, all residents are given MDS assessments regardless of payer type.
All residents in Medicare and/or Medicaid certified facilities are assessed at admission, annually, for a significant change in status assessment, significant correction of prior assessment, and a quarterly review assessment. Admission assessments must be completed by 14th day of resident's stay (unless Medicare which have more requirements). The annual reassessment must be within 12 months of the most recent full assessment. Significant change reassessments must be within 14 days following a change in status has occurred. Quarterlies must be no less frequently than once ever 3 months. This means that (at a minimum) 3 quarterly reviews and one full assessment is required in each 12 month period. Because subsequent assessments are based on timing of admission assessments or other full assessments quarterly assessments will not necessarily be in a specific quarter. According to the RAI Users Manual facilities may vary or stagger their schedules (all residents in Feb, May, August and November or stagger with some in January, some in February, remainder in March and first group again in April).
The MDS contains items that measure physical, psychological and psycho-social functioning characteristics of the resident. See the Chapter 3 of CMS's RAI Version 2.0 Manual for a description of the data elements collected in the MDS. Note, not all assessment types collect the same data. For example, questions relating to a living will or back pain are only reported on full assessments, not on quarterly assessments.
MDS data from CMS is available starting in October 1998 through present. There is approximately a 3-month delay until the MDS data is available for research. The earliest data will have more mistakes in the data because of a learning curve so CMS recommends using data after October 1998. Facilities have a month to transmit data to their State but they are frequently late. Generally CMS extracts data from the State database to their National database for target dates after 2-3 months.
As of September 2001, MDS assessment records are based on the date the nursing facility submitted the assessment, the "submission date." If you need an assessment based on a specific period of time (e.g, all assessments that given during 6 months) or "target" date range, you may need to request additional months of data depending on your needs. For example, 99% of original assessments, 99% re-entries and 96% of discharges are submitted within 90 days of the target date, however, only 77% of corrected annual/quarterly assessments, 71% of corrected re-entries, and 83% of corrected discharges are submitted within 90 days of the target date. If you're interested in capturing 90% of corrected assessments allow 6 months from the end of your target date.
MDS data can be extracted based on disease status, type of assessment, state of the nursing facility, specific nursing facility, and known cohort (using a SSN or HIC finder file).
The output file is a 1812 byte flat file. Currently CMS only releases MDS data on 3480 or 3490E IBM Standard label tape cartridges in EBCDIC format.