As a regulatory specialist, I find myself asking my students, fellow coders, and other colleagues (e.g., clinical documentation improvement specialists) where they are in terms of preparation for ICD...
What constitutes good documentation? The next physician treating the patient should be able to pick up the medical record and know exactly what happened in the previous encounter. How often does this...
CMS offered some clarity on what it considers to be a family of codes in ICD-10-CM. You might remember that CMS struck a deal with the American Medical Association (AMA) to get AMA on board with ICD-...
Sometimes the logic of the American Medical Association (AMA) escapes me. Okay, most of the time, I have no idea what the people at the AMA are thinking. Take the organization’s continuing crusade to...
Have you heard that not all payers will be ready for the ICD-10-CM/PCS coding system on October 1, 2013? What a headache, huh? All payers were required to be ANSI X12 Version 5010 compliant by...
The Association of Clinical Documentation Improvement Specialists (ACDIS) recently submitted a comment to CMS explaining its position against the proposed code freeze. ACDIS' comment stated the...
Actress Angelina Jolie made headlines with her New York Times editorial explaining her decision to undergo a prophylactic double mastectomy to reduce her chances of breast cancer. She also plans to...
What do you know, bubonic plague is still hanging around. It seems like we should have eradicated it by now. Turns out, if you go to the desert southwest and play with dead animals you too can...
The holiday presents have all been unwrapped, and while the children were (mostly) thrilled by their gifts, their parents aren’t as pleased with what happened once the kids started playing with them...
The AMA and Republican congressmen have been working together for quite a w hile to try and kill ICD-10, but their latest attempt shows not only desperation, but a fundamental misunderstanding of how...
