A diabetic patient is admitted with gangrene. The physician does not specifically link the diabetes and the gangrene, but alsodoes not document any other potential cause of the gangrene. Should you code both conditions?
In ICD-9-CM, coders can assume a cause-and-effect...Read More »
Go to your local bookstore, pick up a copy of Gray’s Anatomy (the book, not the television show), and flip though the illustrations. Alternately, you can Google “Gray’s anatomy illustrations.” They are in the public domain. Some of them are...Read More »
Q:We have a problem getting our physicians to understand what we are querying for (chronic respiratory failure) when a patient is on home oxygen continuously with documented supplementary oxygen (SpO2) of <90% or arterial blood gas (ABG) with hypoxemia documented....Read More »
Q: I need help identifying the principal diagnosis for the following situation. The patient presented with shortness of breath and hypoxia, and had emergent dialysis which resolved his symptoms. However the patient’s international normalized ratio (INR) was sub therapeutic due...Read More »
Q:I am the only CDI specialist in our 150-bed facility. I have held the position for three years, and am the first one to do so helping to build the position from the ground up. Being the only CDI, I am on several committees, responsible for continual physician...Read More »
by Shannon Newell, RHIA, CCS, AHIMA-approved ICD-10-CM/PCS trainer
Under the Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement (CJR), which began April 1, acute care hospitals in selected geographic areas assume quality and payment accountability for retrospectively calculated bundled...Read More »
Coders and clinicians seem to speak different languages. CDI specialists often serve as the translators between clinicians and coders, so it's important that all three groups work together.
Both coders and CDI specialists can query physicians when documentation:
A new bill introduced in the House and Senate includes a small, rather buried section that would delay implementation of ICD-10 for another year, to Oct. 1, 2015.
The main focus of the bill is a fix to the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR),...Read More »
