by Trey La Charité, MD
I realized, painfully, early in my career as a physician advisor for CDI that I needed to learn a lot more about coding and the process of translating physicians’ written words into ICD codes. I also needed a more secure footing to successfully appeal the ever...Read More »
by James P. Fee, MD, CCDS, and Garry L. Huff, MD, CCS, CCDS
Certainly, the alphabetical and tabular index of the ICD-9-CM codebook assume the “postoperative” relationship as causal, but a CDI specialist should investigate this further within the specific clinical context.Read More »
AHA Coding Clinic for ICD-9-CM released its third round of ICD-10 coding guidance in its Second Quarter 2013 issue. HCPro CDI Education Director Cheryl Ericson, MS, RN, CCDS, CDIP, AHIMA approved ICD-10-CM/PCS trainer, says the guidance contains several questions about procedures which may be...Read More »
It was around the time of the ACDIS annual conference when Bonnie I. Epps, RN, MSN, manager of CDI for Emory Healthcare in Atlanta, started researching the effect of expanding her CDI program to include pediatric and neonatal units. When asked why she was interested in expanding...Read More »
Years ago, the physician you saw for your annual checkup was the physician in charge of your care should you need to be admitted to the hospital. Today, however, this model has changed. With the complexity of care now required for many illnesses, and the complexity of physician structures at...Read More »
Third-party regulatory agencies often question the clinical validity of a physician’s diagnosis. Most hospitals have had a Recovery Auditor deny a claim due to lack of documentation identifying supportive clinical indicators in the medical record. But until recently, CDI specialists and coders...Read More »
Let’s face it: CDI is a large and growing profession in part because it increases hospital case-mix indexes and reimbursement. A good CDI program leads to accurate documentation of specific diagnoses, resulting in a more accurate representation of a patient’s severity of illness, and better...Read More »
