For FY 2022, CMS continues to expand inpatient access to cutting edge health care technologies by increasing the additional payments designed to cover their development costs and streamlining applicable FDA approval processes.
To select the most specific codes for pediatric conditions, inpatient coders must understand the difference between the terms “neonate,” “newborn,” and “infant.”
Since the start of the pandemic, HIM, CDI, and coding professionals have focused on understanding acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) as a manifestation of COVID-19.
You may wonder why an article about the coding of Hierarchical Condition Categories (HCCs) in the outpatient wound care setting is appearing in an inpatient periodical. When I first approached this topic, I focused on the outpatient wound care setting. But the more I thought about it, I realized this topic is pertinent for inpatient coders.
Documentation is an integral part of a patient’s healthcare encounter. Improper or imprecise documentation may create an inaccurate picture of what truly occurred during a patient’s hospital stay or outpatient visit. How do CDI and inpatient professionals capture the most accurate picture possible? The answer may lie in solving a more complex question: How do we encourage and expand critical thinking?
CMS recently released the fiscal year (FY) 2022 IPPS final rule which finalizes its efforts to cushion the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on hospital revenue and resources. Along with payment rate updates, the final rule also repealed the MS-DRG relative weight methodology and hospital cost-reporting requirement finalized in the 2021 IPPS final rule.
