Note from the Instructor: Physician queries and education require ongoing efforts

by Laurie L. Prescott, RN, MSN, CCDS, CDIP, CRC

In the beginning, when placing queries for the type of heart failure or urosepsis, you may think that physicians will eventually learn the more specific documentation required and that your queries will no longer be necessary. I innocently thought that I would run reasons to query my physicians. Silly me!

Although not as frequently, I still had to ask those very same questions—hey doc, can you please specify the type of heart failure—years later. But I also found so many other opportunities for clarification as I grew in my understanding of the role and as clinical practice and coding rules changed.

I doubt I would have ever run out of questions, nor will you.

Many of the physicians I first worked with were very supportive and responded to education, queries, conversations etc., positively. Seeing my teaching reflected in their documentation was very encouraging. As with any group of students, however, there will always be the overachievers, the slow to grasp but committed learners, and those that just don’t understand why (nor do they care) clinical documentation matters to so much of the healthcare practice.

One physician (whom I very much learned to appreciate) sat down with me one day and said, “Laurie, did you know on average it takes 12 attempts to train a German shepherd to fetch but it takes 21 years to teach a doctor?”

So don’t worry about job security, because we are not training German shepherds to fetch, we’re helping physicians document the care they provide in a changing healthcare landscape. There will always be a reason to prove how valuable your assistance can be.

Editor’s Note: Prescott is a CDI Education Specialist at HCPro in Danvers, Massachusetts. Contact her at lprescott@hcpro.com. For information regarding CDI Boot Camps visit www.hcprobootcamps.com/courses/10040/overview.