Upcoming Changes to MDS Assessments on the TMHP LTC Online Portal on October 1

On October 1, 2023, the Texas Medicaid & Healthcare Partnership (TMHP) will implement the following changes to the Minimum Data Set (MDS) comprehensive and quarterly assessments on the Long-Term Care Online Portal (LTCOP).

TMHP will update 55 fields in the Resource Utilization Group (RUG) section to allow users to manually enter and validate data for the purpose of calculating a client RUG value. Currently, these fields are read-only and auto filled with data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) extract files. Following the update, the fields will no longer be auto filled on MDS Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) assessments with an assessment reference date (ARD) on or after October 1, 2023, and users will be required to enter the data into the LTCOP.

Note: All other fields in the RUG section will continue to be auto filled and read-only.

Providers that are using a third-party vendor for long-term care Medicaid information (LTCMI) submissions must ensure that the vendor is aware of these changes and coordinate RUG field submission with them.

Note: Users currently complete the LTCMI section on the LTCOP, and there will be no change to this process.

Detailed requirements for this MDS update will be finalized in the coming weeks and communicated in upcoming notifications.

If you have questions, call the TMHP LTC Help Desk at 800-626-4117 (select option 1 and then option 7).