On the seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me seven swans a-swimming. To be completely accurate, he took a group of us on a road trip to a pond where the swans swam in blissful ignorance of...
And the new proposed ICD-10-CM/PCS implementation date is (drum roll, please)…October 1, 2014. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the new date as part...
Do you suffer from triskaidekaphobia, paraskevidekatriaphobia or friggatriskaidekaphobia? In other words are you afraid of the number 13 or Friday the 13 th ? More importantly, can you code for those...
Multiple surveys have shown that physician practices are lagging behind in preparation for ICD-10. CMS recently released a Quick Start Guide that outlines five steps healthcare professionals should...
The National Center for Health Statistics, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and CMS have posted some updated files for ICD-10-CM for 2013. The following files are available for...
Most coders will spend their time reporting codes from the Medical and Surgical section (first character 0) and the Obstetrics section (1). Each character in those sections has the same meaning:...
Coders will find they need more information to select the appropriate code in chapter 13 (Diseases of the Musculoskeletal System and Connective Tissue [M00–M99]) of the ICD-10-CM Manual. Most of the...
I was recently researching ICD-10 for an upcoming client presentation. As I was gathering information, I realized that this is the time of the year that I would have been entering into the budget...
You can stop holding your breath. Shelley C. Safian, PhD, MAOM/HSM, CCS-P, CPC-H, CPC-I, CHA , AHIMA-approved ICD-10-CM/PCS trainer, and Tara L. Bell, RN, MSN, CCM, AHIMA-approved ICD-10-CM/PCS...
Spring is in the air and Anytown just held its combined Spring Festival and Easter egg hunt. I’m sad to say things did not go smoothly, judging by the number of patients in the Fix ‘Em Up outpatient...
