The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released an important report in November 2019 on antibiotic-resistant threats in the United States. This comprehensive look at the serious problem of antibiotic resistance has compelling individual stories, great graphics, and actions that healthcare institutions can take to help deal with the issue. The report is free to download. I recommend it for professionals who work in documentation and coding as the information can be applied immediately in your work environments.
New guidelines have been published regarding the diagnosis and treatment of adults with community-acquired pneumonia by the American Thoracic Society and Infectious Diseases Society of America (Metlay et al., 2019).
Prevention of the flu is important as this illness can lead to hospitalization and even death. The CDC reports the hospitalization rate due to the flu is 2.7 per every 100,000 persons, and there is a 4.8% mortality rate due to influenza and pneumonia.
Keeping up with commercial payer requirements can stump any revenue integrity department, and commercial payer audits can be an especially tough puzzle to solve.
The fiscal year 2020 inpatient prospective payment system (IPPS) proposed rule threw gas on the population health fire when it proposed giving social determinants of health (SDOH) codes more weight as complications/comorbid conditions (CC).
Getting clean, compliant claims out the door is one of the foundations of a sound inpatient hospital. A robust process for handling claim edits and managing denials will go a long way toward supporting that goal.
Due to the frequency of diagnoses and treatments for breast cancer, it’s more important than ever for inpatient coders to make sure they are reporting these diagnoses and procedures with the utmost accuracy.
HIM directors’ and managers’ salaries made gains in some areas, but others may be falling behind, according to respondents of HCPro’s 2019 HIM director and manager salary survey.
As the cost of healthcare continues to skyrocket, payers are looking for ways to save and want to make sure that claims reflect correct information and that the care provided was clinically justified.
