January 9, 2023
By Loretta Khangura, MPH
It’s UDS season!
If you work at a federally qualified healthcare center (FQHC), you have probably experienced the collective groan when Uniform Data System (UDS) reporting season rolls around. If your FQHC has good communication, strong data governance and cross-disciplinary quality and governance processes, the UDS season will not be such a challenge. However, if any of these areas are weak, the challenge of the UDS report will magnify these weaknesses.
Here are four things to do throughout the year to lead your FQHC through a successful UDS report — the first time around.
1. Ensure the basics are covered.
The electronic health record (EHR), most population health, and FQHC analytics systems are already capturing the required data. If the FQHC has been exercising its data governance muscles throughout the year, there should be no surprises. Additionally, the FQHC Quality Program has been watching performance on many of the key metrics for UDS throughout the year. The Quality Team will notice anything that looks out of order in Tables 6B and 7. Discrepancies help to focus the team’s data validation efforts.
2. Start off early and strong.
Get a multidisciplinary team together. Have a representative for each of the UDS tables and an application expert to troubleshoot technical problems and submit tickets with vendors to make coding corrections when needed.
With your team in place, start running draft reports as soon as the vendors have released the newest version. If the vendor is running late, run drafts from the prior year version until the new version is available. Look for glaring errors while you still have time to make corrections in data capture, application issues, or internal processes.
3. Address the most common challenges.
Table 3B. Capture and report sexual orientation and gender identity. Be sure there is a process in place to capture this data on every adult at least once.
Table 4. Capture income and household size to calculate federal poverty level. This is required annually for all patients, regardless of sliding-fee status. Patient attestation is sufficient for those not in the sliding-fee program, where income verification must follow the guidelines set by the CHC governing board. Build this into the annual patient registration update process.
Table 7. Capture birth outcomes data on all patients that received prenatal care at your organization or were referred elsewhere for care. Be sure to have the processes in place with the hospitals where your patients deliver to make this data collection ongoing throughout the year.
4. Look for opportunities.
Identify suboptimal communications among various administrative, financial, and clinical arms of the FQHC. Smoothing out and strengthening these lines of communication will help in everything you do, and it will make UDS reporting easier.
Look at all of the UDS data with a critical eye. Does it point out areas where electronic workflows could be improved?
Compare the monthly Quality reports to the UDS reports of Table 6B and 7. If they do not align, are there opportunities to adjust workflows or improve data governance so that applications are correctly mapped and coded for accuracy throughout the year?
Shine a light on previously unrecognized talent in the organization. Then ask how that talent can be cultivated to benefit the individual and the organization.
For more detailed information on UDS reporting and training, check out the links below.
Loretta Khangura, MPH, is the Senior Advisor for Health Informatics at Renaye James Healthcare Advisors. Connect with Renaye James Healthcare Advisors to learn how we can help.
It’s UDS season!
If you work at a federally qualified healthcare center (FQHC), you have probably experienced the collective groan when Uniform Data System (UDS) reporting season rolls around. If your FQHC has good communication, strong data governance and cross-disciplinary quality and governance processes, the UDS season will not be such a challenge. However, if any of these areas are weak, the challenge of the UDS report will magnify these weaknesses.
Here are four things to do throughout the year to lead your FQHC through a successful UDS report — the first time around.
1. Ensure the basics are covered.
The electronic health record (EHR), most population health, and FQHC analytics systems are already capturing the required data. If the FQHC has been exercising its data governance muscles throughout the year, there should be no surprises. Additionally, the FQHC Quality Program has been watching performance on many of the key metrics for UDS throughout the year. The Quality Team will notice anything that looks out of order in Tables 6B and 7. Discrepancies help to focus the team’s data validation efforts.
2. Start off early and strong.
Get a multidisciplinary team together. Have a representative for each of the UDS tables and an application expert to troubleshoot technical problems and submit tickets with vendors to make coding corrections when needed.
With your team in place, start running draft reports as soon as the vendors have released the newest version. If the vendor is running late, run drafts from the prior year version until the new version is available. Look for glaring errors while you still have time to make corrections in data capture, application issues, or internal processes.
3. Address the most common challenges.
Table 3B. Capture and report sexual orientation and gender identity. Be sure there is a process in place to capture this data on every adult at least once.
Table 4. Capture income and household size to calculate federal poverty level. This is required annually for all patients, regardless of sliding-fee status. Patient attestation is sufficient for those not in the sliding-fee program, where income verification must follow the guidelines set by the CHC governing board. Build this into the annual patient registration update process.
Table 7. Capture birth outcomes data on all patients that received prenatal care at your organization or were referred elsewhere for care. Be sure to have the processes in place with the hospitals where your patients deliver to make this data collection ongoing throughout the year.
4. Look for opportunities.
Identify suboptimal communications among various administrative, financial, and clinical arms of the FQHC. Smoothing out and strengthening these lines of communication will help in everything you do, and it will make UDS reporting easier.
Look at all of the UDS data with a critical eye. Does it point out areas where electronic workflows could be improved?
Compare the monthly Quality reports to the UDS reports of Table 6B and 7. If they do not align, are there opportunities to adjust workflows or improve data governance so that applications are correctly mapped and coded for accuracy throughout the year?
Shine a light on previously unrecognized talent in the organization. Then ask how that talent can be cultivated to benefit the individual and the organization.
For more detailed information on UDS reporting and training, check out the links below.
Loretta Khangura, MPH, is the Senior Advisor for Health Informatics at Renaye James Healthcare Advisors. Connect with Renaye James Healthcare Advisors to learn how we can help.