RE: artificial tears

[Brenda Chance]

The MDS manual states on pg. 3-176 to “count the number of different medications administered by any route (e.g., oral, IV, injections, patch) at any time during the last seven days. … Medications include topical preparations, ointments, creams used in wound care (e.g. Elase), eyedrops, vitamins, and suppositories.”  Added in 08/03 in the update, it states, “Preparations used for preventative care should not be coded.”    Tears, ocean gtts, lid scrub products (if a medication) are usually used to treat a condition and should be counted in your medication count.  The preventative care medications are usually the baza creams, etc.   If medications are justified, then polypharmacy is not an issue.  It becomes an issue when residents are receiving medications that do not benefit them.  Natural tears to a lot of elderly residents help prevent eye infections due to the eyes not secreting tears as well as they have in the past.    Brenda W. Chance, RN, RAC-C MDS Coordinator     CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2004 10:49 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: artificial tears   Hello all,        wondering if others are coding benign meds such as tears, ocean gtts, lid scrub products---i don't .  they skew the poly pharmacy count without benefit to residents POC.                                                               [EMAIL PROTECTED]