The latest short-term Program for Evaluating Payment Patterns Electronic Report (PEPPER) is available for acute care hospitals nationwide, according to a September 1 announcement from CMS. The report includes statistics through the second quarter of fiscal year 2016.
When ICD-10-CM was launched last year, CMS said it would allow providers billing Part B physician fee schedule codes a one-year grace period to fully ramp up. During the grace period, the agency would not deny physician claims as long as the codes on the claim were from the correct “family of...Read More »
Q: I have a patient with alcohol-induced pancreatitis. In this case, the documentation notes a lactate level of 2.9 mmol/L with acute kidney injury (AKI). I have always learned that systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) is defined as two or more of the following...Read More »
The North Carolina ACDIS Chapter recently sent an email to its members offering a discounted $30 dues rate in September, and encouraging them to invite their fellow CDI friends and colleagues to join the group.
Please remember, non-members must register to access free content—...Read More »
Probably the most onerous duty physicians have is the preparation of the inpatient discharge summary, especially after a long or complicated hospital stay. To be frank, I hate doing discharge summaries. I’ll find every reason to put them off. If I look at the current medical records delinquency...Read More »
If you’ve been thinking about taking the Certified Clinical Documentation Specialist (CCDS) exam, there’s no better time than right now to get started. The number of people scheduling an exam slowed this year, particularly in the early months of 2016 as folks...Read More »
Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) generated $466 million in savings, according to CMS. While the quality improvement associated with their efforts may seem impressive and possibly reflective of clinical documentation improvement practices, there are still too many defects in the program to...Read More »
Despite the nearly $1.5 billion settlement CMS paid to hundreds of U.S. hospitals as part of a longstanding Medicare billing dispute, the Department of Health and Human Services is still experiencing significant delays in Medicare appeals.
Please remember, non-members must register to...Read More »