As Region Director for the Texas Health Information Management Association and after serving as President for Alamo Area HIMA, one thing is clear – AHIMA and its Component State Associations (CSAs) rely on all of us to move the HIM profession into…

NO-RISK CONTRACT – AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME. You may already be familiar with the concept of at-risk contracts in healthcare — due in large part for the need for a solution to growth in the government payer mix…

Beginning October 1, 2019, CMS will use a new case-mix model for Medicare payment, the Patient Driven Payment Model (PDPM), which focuses on the patient’s condition and resulting care needs rather than on the amount of care provided in order…

AUDITS OFFER FIX FOR POOR CODING COMPLIANCE, LAGGING REIMBURSEMENT THE EVER-INCREASING complexity of healthcare is driving the need for coding quality and compliance programs. Given the transition to ICD-10, advancements in treatments and procedures, a move to quality reporting, and…

There is no doubt, attendees of last week’s ACDIS 2018 conference will be speaking about it for months to come. The conference was comprised of over 90 speakers including physicians, registered nurses, health information management (HIM) administrators, certified clinical documentation…

5 REASONS WHY CODING & DOCUMENTATION AUDITS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER All health information management (HIM) leaders know that coding quality audits are critical. We can all agree the consequences of substandard coding – lost revenue, increased denials, and…

According to AHIMA, a query can be a powerful communication tool used to clarify documentation in the health record and achieve accurate code assignments. Querying has become a common communication and educational tool for clinical documentation improvement (CDI) and coding departments.…

As the largest outsource coding provider in the country we have identified trends and gained unique insights from our coders throughout the transition to ICD-10. We are sharing these insights with the broader HIM Community through our bi-weekly blog series…

The importance of accuracy and compliance in today's coding environment cannot be overstated. High-quality coding is always a priority – but is there a way to make coding impervious to challenges? Unfortunately, the answer is “NO.”  There is no magic…