MDS 3.0 Section S
On MDS 2.0, a portion of the submission record was set aside for state-defined assessment items. This section was referred to as “Section S”. MDS 3.0 also supports Section S. The items that CMS has approved for use in Section S were added to the data submission specifications starting with Version 1.00.2.
For MDS 3.0, there is a single set of Section S items that can be used by any State. With CMS approval, states will be allowed to collect all, some, or none of the Section S items and they will be able to determine the item subset codes (ISCs) on which each item is active (collected). As with MDS 2.0, Section S items will be edited for valid ranges and formats, but there will be no consistency edits or other inter-item edits applied. The documentation of the process for obtaining CMS approval to collect items will be available separately from CMS.
In the future, States will be allowed to request that CMS add new items to the list of available Section S items. If the new state requested item is approved, CMS will add the item to the approved list on a periodic basis, currently twice a year. When this happens, a new version of the data specs will be produced. Rather than updating the entire set of data specs reports, Section S items will be listed on a separate report so that only that report will need to be updated when Section S is changed. The data specs will not contain information about the Section S items that have been selected by each State. As with MDS 2.0, software vendors must obtain that information from individual States. The documentation of the process for obtaining CMS approval of new Section S items will be available separately from CMS.