Home Health Coding — Portfolio Projects
Build projects that show you can connect OASIS documentation to accurate ICD-10-CM coding and PDGM grouping — the core, high-stakes skill of this specialty.
Project 1: OASIS-to-Diagnosis Mapping Exercise
Level: Beginner | Time: 2 days
Work through 10-15 realistic home health referral scenarios, extracting the relevant OASIS assessment findings and mapping them to correctly sequenced ICD-10-CM diagnosis codes.
Steps
Skills Demonstrated
Note
Verify current OASIS item set and PDGM diagnosis-grouping logic against current CMS Home Health guidance — both are subject to periodic CMS updates, and an outdated mapping can misclassify a case.
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Project 2: PDGM Case-Mix Group Practice Set
Level: Intermediate | Time: 3-4 days
Given a set of coded home health episodes, work through the Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM) classification factors — clinical grouping, functional impairment level, comorbidity adjustment — to determine each case's case-mix group at a conceptual level.
Steps
Skills Demonstrated
Note
PDGM's specific clinical-grouping and comorbidity tables are CMS-published and updated on a regular cycle — treat exact category assignments as needing verification against a current CMS PDGM reference, not as fixed facts to memorize once.
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Project 3: Full Home Health Coding Portfolio with HIPPS Codes
Level: Advanced | Time: 1 week
A comprehensive project taking referral documentation through OASIS review, ICD-10-CM coding, PDGM grouping, and HIPPS code assignment — the full home health coding workflow end to end.
Steps
Skills Demonstrated
Portfolio Artifact Name
home-health-coding-portfolio
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Tips for Great Projects
Start from the OASIS documentation, not the code. The real skill is extracting the right clinical picture from an assessment and coding to match it — not memorizing codes in isolation.
Show how a coding decision affects payment classification. Being able to explain "this primary diagnosis choice changes the clinical grouping" is a genuine differentiator for this specialty.
Flag documentation gaps instead of guessing at intent. A referral that doesn't clearly support a primary diagnosis should prompt a documented physician query — demonstrate that judgment explicitly.
Treat PDGM/OASIS specifics as things to verify, not memorize once. Both are CMS-maintained and updated on a recurring cycle.