Back in January the I posted the first What To do Now article. Basically a reminder of which new QOF indictors "went live" back then. If you have not read that then I would suggest giving it a look before coming back here.
I did miss one thing off the January post which was the requirement for everyone on the CKD register to have either an albumin:creatinine or protein:creatinine ratio recorded in the notes. Actually the protein:creatinine ratio is not officially recommended but it is all that some laboratories will do and will still count for the QOF.
What is new is a second assessment of the severity of depression - 5 to 12 weeks after the first one. Despite evidence that these assessments are of minimal use at best there will be twice as many of these this year. The timing here is quite crucial and will make a lot of difference to how it will work in practice. To put it simply following a diagnosis of depression you will have 28 days to code the first assessment. From the time of the first assessment you will have to complete the second between five and twelve weeks after that. Why is this significant? Well any patients who have their first assessment after 7th January 2010 and then miss their second will not be counted. If they do have their second but had their first before 25th February 2010 they will be counted. After that they never will be counted. There is a short window of potential catch up time in the new year. For this year you will need to start on the second assessments from the 7th of May (for those patients with their first assessment on the first of April just gone).
Finally there are two primary prevention indicators. PP1 is simply the calculation of a Framingham risk score (or ASSIGN score for readers in Scotland) for all patients diagnosed with hypertension since April the first who have not had CHD, Diabetes or stroke in the past. Patients already on statins or similar will also not be expected to have a score although this may need an exception code. You have three months before (?) or after the date of diagnosis to do this.
PP2 asks that all patients who have been diagnosed with hypertension since the start of April have advice about diet, exercise, smoking and drinking sometime this year. There are already separate codes for each and these may be used for the rules although how they deal with non smokers and tee totallers remains to be seen. Templates would be useful here and if you have any I would be delighted to publish them to a wider audience.
You can find the full rules and regulations at the BMA site, although I'm not sure for how long as they tend to shuffle their links without warning.
Good Luck!
