CDSmart

Welcome To CDSmart

We know that Centralized Data System (CDS) can be quite a challenge!

To make it easier for California Family Health Council's agencies to use CDS to meet Federal Title X reporting requirements we are presenting CDSmart. These pages will offer friendly advice and information on CDS updates. You’ll find helpful hints on:

• Understanding what the standards actually mean for collecting information from your clients and how to receive credit for every eligible client you serve
• How to use your own practice management system or electronic health record system to report information on CFHC’s secure online system
• How to make sure your data is accurate, reliable and on time
• How to use CDS to get custom reports for your agency

CDSmart provides links to useful reference materials and key documents such as:

• The CDS User Manual
• The CDS webinars, CDS 101 and Optimizing CDS
• Sample data questions and clinic forms
• CFHC-funded agencies can use links to login pages for CDS and SPR

Frequently Asked Questions

• What is the Centralized Data System (CDS)?
• What information is required on each CDS visit record?
• What other information can be included on a CDS visit record?
• How big is the CDS database?
• Who contributes data to CDS?
• How does data get into CDS?
• How does CDS help prepare the Family Planning Annual Report (FPAR)?
• How does the CFHC SPR system relate to CDS?
• What else can CDS do besides help produce the FPAR Report?
• What is the history of CDS?
• Who works on CDS at CFHC?
• How do agencies get set up on CDS?

Taking It Easy with CDS Webinars: CDS 101

Below are some links that we hope you'll refer to, especially with staff new to CDS: the information covered in our CDS 101 Webinar. (You can also catch our Optimizing CDS Webinar.) These two webinars, complete with slides and sound, give you a super easy way to learn or refresh your understanding of the Centralized Data System.

As you might guess, CDS 101 gives you the basics of what CDS is, how it works to compile data to meet your (and our) reporting requirements to the federal government, and how you can move around in CDS to submit data and run your own reports.

• You can listen to the webinar here (webex.com site).
• You can peruse the slides here:

View more presentations from California Family Health Council.

 

• Download the slides (PDF, 766.8K)

If you have any questions after you look & listen, contact us at the CDS HelpDesk at 213/386-5614 X4552 or [email protected].

 

Taking It Easy with CDS Webinars: Optimizing CDS

Below are some links that we hope you'll refer to often: the information covered in our Optimizing CDS Webinar. (You can also catch our CDS 101 Webinar.) These two webinars, complete with slides and sound, give you a super easy way to learn or refresh your understanding of the Centralized Data System.

Optimizing CDS is designed to provide friendly tips so that you can get credit for all of the client visits you do and for all the services you provide. It also gives you specific advice with some of the tricky items- reporting contraceptive methods, medical services and special populations. We talk about how different types of problems, such as an incomplete form, a flawed procedure, incorrectly configured PMS software, or an error in CDS mapping could contribute to incomplete or inaccurate data.

What’s the BIG DEAL about Method Unknown?

Very soon, if not already, you may be surprised to find CDS records with “Method Unknown” being rejected from your monthly CDS submission and showing up on your audit report.   This is a new reporting policy by CFHC.  You may be wondering why we are making such a big deal about this.

Background

Title X is about family planning; it’s the single biggest service we provide.   Having complete and accurate information about Title X clients’ primary method of contraception makes it possible for CFHC and the Office of Population Affairs to:

• Compare the data from Title X agencies with other sources of information, including the National Survey of Family Growth
• Track patterns in method use over time at the state, regional, and national levels
• Track patterns in method use by gender and age
• Show how Title X providers  increase access to newer family planning technologies, and to
• Assess Title X  program’s contribution to Healthy People 2010 and 2020 objectives

Some agencies have been submitting many records with “Method Unknown” (see the FPAR table below for an example of one agency’s data).  This was very difficult to explain to the Office of Population Affairs, plus it really hurts our ability to use the CDS data base for tracking the patterns listed above. 

The Solution

The CDS Audit Team has been working closely with agencies to make it easier to report clients’ primary method of contraception consistently.  Sometimes the list of methods on the SuperBill needed updating.  In other cases, reminding clinicians to routinely mark the primary method of contraception helped.  

If Your Records are Being Rejected…..

If you do get records rejected because of “Method Unknown”, you’ll find them listed on the Audit Report for your agency’s monthly CDS submission.  You then have a couple of options for fixing the problem:

1. You can look up the client’s method and update her/his record on your PMS/EMR system. Then, you can resubmit the record(s) to CDS like you would other rejected
2. You will need to resubmit or manually enter all rejected records before your next monthly CDS submission.  Your CFHC Area Manager will help you troubleshoot any problems that might be causing records with Method Unknown.  The CDS team is also available to provide additional technical assistance as needed

Contact your Area Manager for more information. Soon we expect that records rejected for Method Unknown will be rare and no longer a big deal!

Age Limits in CDS

Family PACT recently announced that age limits had been removed from its eligibility criteria. You may be wondering if CDS will be doing the same thing. After all, Title X has never specified age limits for eligibility. For now, in spite of these facts, CDS is keeping its age limits, and here's why...

In order to be counted as a Title X-eligible "family planning user," a client must have had a "family planning encounter" during the reporting period. The purpose of such an encounter, according to Title X guidelines, is:

To provide family planning and related preventive health services to female and male clients who want to avoid unintended pregnancies or achieve intended pregnancies.

So post-menopausal women, or men whose partner is post-menopausal, would not be considered eligible since they are not at risk of pregnancy. Any non-menopausal women over the CDS age limit of 55, or men over the limit of 60, could be eligible for reporting, provided they want to avoid or achieve pregnancy.

Unfortunately most agencies' PMS or EHR system identifies visits to send to CDS largely based on which procedures or services are provided. For example, the system may search for a set of CPT codes that indicates that contraception was provided, or that STD tests were done. The system is rarely sophisticated enough to check for both the services provided as well as the client's desire to avoid/achieve pregnancy. Instead an age range is used as a substitute, with the assumption that if the client falls within the age limits, they are likely to be at risk for pregnancy.

The age limit function within CDS cannot be selectively applied to a subset of agencies- it's all or nothing. So for now, we are keeping the limits in place in an effort to avoid reporting clients who most likely do not meet the definition of a family planning user.