Never miss an ARD deadline again. Enter a resident’s admission date and the calculator instantly maps every required OBRA and SNF PPS assessment window – ARD deadlines, submission cutoffs, and care plan due dates – calculated to the day. Toggle Medicare Part A on to see your 5-Day PPS window alongside the OBRA schedule, and get an automatic alert when the two assessments can be combined into one.
Assessment Window Calculator
MDS 3.0 v1.20.1 · OBRA & SNF PPS · Chapters 2.6 & 2.8–2.12
How to use this tool
Enter the admission date and click Calculate schedule. The tool defaults the Admission ARD to Day 14 – the latest allowable date – and cascades every downstream window from there. If you’ve already selected a different ARD, enter it in the Admission assessment ARD field before calculating, and all subsequent windows will adjust automatically.
If the resident is on a Medicare Part A stay, toggle Medicare Part A on and confirm the Part A start date. In most cases, this matches the admission date, but if the resident came in under observation status and later converted to Part A, enter the actual Part A start date so the 5-Day PPS window is calculated correctly.
The status column updates based on today’s date. Rows highlighted in red are overdue; orange indicates the submission deadline is within 3 days; and yellow indicates it is within 7 days. The summary cards at the top give you an at-a-glance count of items that are overdue or coming due within the next 14 days. Click Print / save schedule to generate a formatted summary you can keep in the resident’s record or share with your billing team.
Understanding the windows
Each assessment has two key deadlines: the ARD (Assessment Reference Date) and the submission deadline. The ARD is the last day of the observation period – it must fall within the window shown. Once you set the ARD, you have 14 calendar days to complete and submit the assessment to iQIES. For comprehensive assessments (Admission and Annual), the care plan must also be completed within 7 days of the ARD.
The quarterly cycle runs continuously from the Admission ARD. Each quarterly assessment must have an ARD no more than 92 days from the prior assessment’s ARD — not 92 days from when you submitted it, and not 92 days from the end of the quarter. The Annual resets the cycle and must fall within 366 days of the last comprehensive assessment ARD.
A note on Significant Change assessments: The SCSA is not shown in the schedule above because it isn’t date-driven – it’s triggered by a clinical determination. When the IDT determines a significant change has occurred, a Comprehensive SCSA must be completed within 14 days of that determination. It resets the quarterly cycle, so your Q1 window will be recalculated based on the SCSA ARD.
Medicare Part A and PDPM
Under the Patient Driven Payment Model (PDPM), only one PPS assessment is required during a Part A stay: the 5-Day assessment, with an ARD falling on Days 1–8 of the covered stay. The old 14-day, 30-day, 60-day, and 90-day PPS assessment schedules no longer exist — if you’re still running them, they aren’t required and won’t trigger a payment rate change.
If a resident’s clinical status changes materially mid-stay, you can complete an optional Interim Payment Assessment (IPA) at any time to reclassify them under PDPM. The IPA can be combined with any OBRA quarterly or annual assessment that falls within the same window, saving your team a full assessment cycle.
When the 5-Day PPS window and the OBRA Admission window overlap – which they will whenever Part A begins at or near admission – the calculator will flag the combination opportunity automatically. Combining into one assessment is almost always the right move: one ARD, one observation period, one submission.
Dates are calculated from the information you enter and are intended for scheduling and planning support only. Always verify all assessment windows and deadlines against your facility’s certified MDS software. For authoritative guidance on assessment timing, refer to the CMS RAI Manual v1.20.1, Chapters 2.6 and 2.8–2.12, and your State RAI Coordinator.