ACDIS update: Regulatory Committee insight on EVALI, antibiotic resistance codes

The ACDIS Regulatory Committee exists to review regulatory policy, coding, and clinical updates, comment to agencies on the behalf of ACDIS, and provide summary, interpretation, and analysis to the ACDIS membership.

As mentioned last week, the Committee is hard at work drafting a comment on the proposed sepsis code changes and is seeking the membership’s feedback on an ACDIS poll to help formulate their comments. That’s not the only thing the committee has been working on, however.

At the end of September, the committee published a position statement on the use of antibiotic resistance codes. Drafted by Howard Rodenberg, MD, MPH, CCDS, the statement outlines the committee’s concern regarding inappropriate use of the new antibiotic resistance codes. Misuse could lead to “significant issues with ‘upcoding,’ non-compliance, and potential fraud,” according to the paper. To avoid these pitfalls, the paper outlines several checks and balances. Click here to read the statement.

Just last week, the committee also published a paper on e-cigarette, or vaping, product use associated lung injury (EVALI) and the associated documentation concerns. The paper summarizes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) report on this condition and their newly released EVALI treatment guidelines. Drafted by Haaris Ali, MD, CDIP, and Candace Blankenship, BSN, RN, CCDS, the paper also offers several case studies and query opportunities and offers suggestions for CDI specialists’ role with emerging diagnoses. Click here to read the paper.

To stay up-to-date on all the Regulatory Committee’s activities, make sure to visit the Regulatory Committee Insight section of our Resource Library. The committee also regularly publishes articles in the CDI Journal based on questions received from the ACDIS membership. To submit a question, contact ACDIS Editor Linnea Archibald (larchibald@acdis.org) today.