Although typically associated with outpatient services due to their use of HCPCS codes, chargemasters are also crucial in inpatient settings, as they serve as the foundation for billing services rendered during a patient’s hospital stay. Learn how inpatient coders can help maintain the financial health of their organizations through the proper understanding of chargemasters. Note : To access this free article, make sure you first register if you do not have a paid subscription.
Coders play a crucial role in addressing clinical and coding denials, but they are far from alone in this effort. All HIM professionals are working together to create and implement comprehensive strategies that effectively reduce denials, fostering a unified approach to overcoming these challenges.
Q: A month ago, a patient had undergone an open reduction and internal fixation of a traumatic fracture of the left femur. This afternoon, she was admitted for a severe and deep infection of the left thigh and immediately taken to surgery. An open, wide excisional debridement of the infected skin, subcutaneous tissue, and fascia was carried out, and the internal fixation hardware was removed. Cultures of the fixation pins grew Staphylococcus aureus. Can coders report infections of devices similar to how they would report a wound infection in ICD-10-CM?
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has pulled information on health-related social needs (HRSN), a subset of broader social determinants of health factors, for state Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, potentially making it harder for services that address HRSNs to be covered by these affected programs.
Review a study based on ICD-10-CM data from the National Vital Statistics System that shows a decline in U.S. maternal mortality rates from 22.3 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2022 to a rate of 18.6 deaths in 2023.
Research of multiple countries on various continents and with varied complexity of healthcare environments reveals significant disparities in health outcomes and access to healthcare, and a staggering percentage of health outcomes are attributed to social determinants of health. Studying these countries shows differences in how socioeconomic issues are captured in documentation and coded using different patient classification systems, guidelines, and regulations.
One of the most frequent causes of hospital-acquired AKI is acute tubular necrosis (ATN). Improving documentation and coding practices for ATN involves not only recognizing the condition but also realizing the impact of coding ATN versus AKI, addressing common misconceptions in the HIM field, and fostering collaboration among CDI specialists, coding professionals, and providers. Note : To access this free article, make sure you first register if you do not have a paid subscription.
ICD-10-CM official guidelines once stated that if there is conflicting documentation in the health record, the documentation of the attending physician supersedes that of any other provider. With that rule now gone, Cheryl Ericson, RN, MS, CCDS, CDIP , helps clarify who should be determining diagnoses.
