As promised, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) late Monday released virtual training on updated guidance for the Minimum Data Set (MDS).

The agency initially announced plans for training sessions during an open door forum in March.

Part one consists of pre-recorded training webinars to deliver foundational knowledge on changes coming Oct. 1. A supplemental case study was posted as well to give providers practice in coding new or revised MDS items.

A live, virtual workshop will take place from 12:30 to 5 p.m. EST on June 21, the agency said. Registered participants will provide more practice coding scenarios on certain changes covered in the pre-recorded videos.

“I’m certainly glad they did it now,” said Joel VanEaton, EVP of post-acute care regulatory affairs and education at Broad River Rehab. “This will give everyone an opportunity to really spend time with it. I liked the fact that they’re relatively short videos – the longest one is 40 minutes.”

That particular video is on social determinants of health, and combines changes in Section A and D, among others, that touch this subject. A video on the shift from Section G to GG isn’t far behind at about 39 minutes. Most of the other webinars are about 10 minutes long.

“Identifying those social determinants of health and being able to incorporate that into the understanding of health equity is really important,” he said. “I’m glad they did the video that way, rather than just saying ‘okay, here’s the change in section D, here’s a change in section A,’ and putting them in separate videos.”

While the MDS coordinator definitely needs to know changes front to back, VanEaton suggests the entire nursing home team watches the videos together, talk about them and really understand the changes.

VanEaton knows state associations, including the Georgia Health Care Association, will be providing on-site training as well – with VanEaton as the educator.

“A lot of people learn in different ways,” added VanEaton. “This is really the beginning of the process as far as I’m concerned and I hope people see it that way. There’s so much that has changed.”

VanEaton refers to an increasing connection between the MDS 3.0 and proposed rule in large part having to do with social determinants of health.

Additional training resources were posted in a ZIp file on the SNF Quality Reporting Program (QRP) Training page. Action plan worksheets, an acronym list, case study documents, a resource guide and PDF versions of the training webinars are available here.

“The action plan worksheet … it’s an editable document, so you can actually put action plans in your facility on how to move forward through this material,” said VanEaton. “I think it’s really helpful.”