As meticulous as a coder may be, he or she is bound to make a mistake at some point in his or her career. After all, nobody is perfect. Mistakes aren't necessarily a reflection on one's abilities or attention to detail. Coders know that physician documentation often makes the job much more difficult. Add stringent productivity standards to that, and you've got a potential recipe for disaster.
BCCS recently spoke with advisory board member Gloryanne Bryant, RHIA, CCS, CDIP, CCDS, about the role of state HIM associations in ICD-10-CM/PCS coder education. The following is a summary of that conversation. Bryant serves as the president of the California Health Information Association (CHIA), which has approximately 5,000 members to date. For more information, visit http://californiahia.org .
When coding guidelines are murky and open for interpretation, coders can sometimes feel as though they're pinned between a rock and a hard place. Discussing the gray areas of coding during a coding roundtable not only helps relieve this tension, but it also helps to establish policies that ensure consistency and continuity.
Consider the following: A beneficiary is admitted to a hospital pursuant to a physician order and receives medically necessary care spanning at least two midnights. CMS will consider this appropriate for payment under Medicare Part A, according to the FY 2014 IPPS proposed rule released April 26. Actuaries estimate that this proposal for what constitutes appropriate inpatient care would increase IPPS expenditures by $220 million due to an expected net increase in inpatient encounters. CMS proposes a 2% reduction to offset projected spending increases.
In February, AHIMA published an update to its 2010 query practice brief. The updated brief, Guidelines for Achieving a Compliant Query Practice, is the result of a joint effort between AHIMA and the Association for Clinical Documentation Improvement Specialists (ACDIS). ?
When Lori Belanger, RN, BSN, RHIT, inpatient coder and CDI specialist at Northern Maine Medical Center in Fort Kent, Maine, began to practice coding charts using ICD-10-CM/PCS, she was a bit surprised by how much her productivity decreased.
The advent of electronic media is slowly but surely changing the way we access information. Hospitals and physicians are transitioning from paper and hybrid medical records to EHRs. Estimates indicate that nearly half of all Internet users send or receive email daily, according to EzineArticles.com .
Robert S. Gold, MD, gives coding guidance on primary cardiomyopathy, SIRS, sepsis, acute respiratory distress syndrome, and conditions during the perinatal period.
