Coders and CDI specialists need to understand the implications coding and sequencing may have on readmissions data and cohort selection, says James S. Kennedy, MD, CCS, managing director at FTI Consulting in Atlanta and a member of the ACDIS advisory board.
Documentation improvement staff often struggle with principal diagnosis selection. A clear understanding of the definition of principal diagnosis and the factors that play into principal diagnosis selection is extremely important, although often confusing.
The quarterly reports issued by the Program for Evaluating Payment Patterns Electronic Report (PEPPER)contain large amounts of data on how a facility compares to others in the same state, the same jurisdiction (i.e., the same Medicare Administrative Contractor), and nationwide in terms of coding...Read More »
Trying to convince physicians that good documentation has “something in it for them” is a battle that CDI specialists fight each day. But a new CMS initiative that bundles physician and hospital payment into one lump sum could represent a long-term, revolutionary solution to that age-old...Read More »
