Improvement in Bed Transferring

The measure uses OASIS item M1850, Transferring. CMS compares the response recorded at start or resumption of care with the response recorded at discharge. An episode counts in the numerator when the discharge response shows less impairment than the baseline. The denominator is every quality episode ending in a discharge during the reporting period, minus the exclusions below. A quality episode starts with a start or resumption of care and ends with a transfer, death or discharge. CMS risk-adjusts the result with a model built for this measure.

Patients who could already transfer independently at start or resumption of care are excluded, since they have no room to improve, and so are patients who were nonresponsive. Episodes that end with an inpatient facility transfer, death, or discharge to home hospice are excluded too; the hospice rule applies to episodes ending on or after January 1, 2023. Generic exclusions cover patients who do not need an OASIS at all, such as patients under 18, maternity-only patients, personal care-only patients and single-visit episodes.

The score compares two M1850 answers. A start of care answer that rates the patient as more independent than they really were leaves the discharge answer little room to show a gain, however much the patient improved.

Improvement in bed transferring is posted on Care Compare and is one of the seven measures CMS uses to compute the Quality of Patient Care Star Rating. It is not in the expanded HHVBP measure set. The HHVBP model's OASIS-based measures for CY 2026 are dyspnea, oral medications, the discharge function score, bathing, and upper and lower body dressing.