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 »
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:
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 »
Timothy N. Brundage, MD, CCDS, is a diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine and the principal of Brundage Medical Group, LLC (BMG). He has been a member of the ACDIS Advisory Board since 2011. He and his wife, Patty (a nurse practitioner who helps with CDI efforts of BMG), are...Read More »
On January 15, UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Mayo Clinic announced a new joint venture dubbed Optum Labs focused on joining data streams and handing them to researches to investigate how to improve healthcare and lower costs,...Read More »
