Achieving a better night sleep and less work stress could definitely be added as the seventh and eighth reason to audit this year, but we suspect those will come as benefits to addressing the six reasons to audit in 2017.
Read MoreThe Centers for Medicare & Medicaid announced last October the award of a new round of contracts for the Medicare Fee-for-Service Recovery Audit.
Read MoreDid you know almost one fifth of the US population lives in a rural area? Critical Access Hospitals, otherwise known as CAHs, make up nearly 30% of the nation’s acute care hospitals. The CAH designation is designed to reduce the financial vulnerability of rural hospitals and improve access to healthcare by keeping essential services in rural communities.
Read MoreLumbar spinal fusions are among the most challenging procedures to code, partly because the anatomy is difficult to conceptualize and due to the variety of approaches and combinations of procedures that can be done.
Let’s focus on fusion of the anterior column of the lumbar spine. That’s fusion of the joint (yes, the disc forms a “lower joint”) between the vertebral bodies. Whenever you see an “interbody fusion” you know you’re looking at an anterior column spinal fusion.
Read MoreOften times we find that some providers are not very specific in their diagnoses documentation. This has always been a concern, however with ICD-10 implementation, specificity has never been more important. Payers have stated that they will be more lax during the first year of ICD-10 implementation and allow for more non-specific codes. However, in the years coming, this relaxed policy is sure to change. That is where coders come in.
Read MoreSepsis – every coder’s best friend! Many of us have faced the challenge of reconciling the variations that exist in defining sepsis between ICD-9, ICD-10, providers as a group, and even amongst providers at a single hospital. Change is in the air.
The most traditional concept of sepsis is a bacterial infection of the blood (septicemia) and the havoc this wreaks on the body. Indeed ICD-9 and ICD-10 both fit best to this idea as the codes for sepsis are found squarely among the bacterial infectious disease codes. Of course ICD-10 arguably clarified the situation somewhat...
Read MoreQuestion: I’m seeing a lot of physicians assigning diabetes with hyperglycemia for “uncontrolled” diabetes. Somehow this doesn’t seem right. Could someone explain to me what the criteria for hyperglycemia is?
Answer: Hyperglycemia has no strict definition and varies from patient to patient in different situations. Anything over a blood glucose over 100 can be considered “hyperglycemia”. In practice...
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Often times we find ourselves in a same old, same old place due to safe career choices. We find ourselves in a comfortable job where everything is familiar and routine. It’s fine for a while, but eventually it gets rather boring. How did this happen to me? How did I get myself in such a rut? If this sounds familiar, it may be time for a change!
A smart move would be to consider a career in Health Information Management (HIM). The HIM industry is growing by leaps and bounds and there are many career paths in this dynamic field.
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