Conference update: Extend your ACDIS2017 experience with a pre-con session

While the main conference doesn’t start until May 9, there are three pre-conference events taking place in Las Vegas, May 8-9. Each pre-con session offers attendees a way to extend their ACDIS experience a couple more days, gain valuable CDI knowledge, and interact with the best instructors around. Even better, there’s really an option for everyone.

Join Richard Pinson, MD, FACP, CCS, and Cynthia Tang, RHIA, CCS, the authors of the best-selling CDI Pocket Guide, for the “Building a Best Practice CDI Team” pre-con. This session focuses on communication and collaboration between CDI specialists, coders, physicians, physician advisors, and other professionals, to create a holistic and successful CDI team.

Pinson offers a valuable perspective on physician engagement throughout the session, spotlighting on evidence-based education.

The “Risk Adjustment Documentation and Coding” pre-con, taught by beloved Boot Camp instructors Shannon McCall, RHIA, CPC, CCS, CCS-P, CPC-I, CCDS, CEMC, CRC, and Laurie Prescott, MSN, RN, CCDS, CDIP, CRC, reviews both inpatient and outpatient coding guidelines and documentation requirements for CMS’ Hierarchical Condition Categories (HCCs).

“What could possibly be more fun than a coding and CDI class all wrapped up in one information-filled risk adjusted package? We are looking forward to working together and learning from each other,” McCall and Prescott say.

Finally, the popular “Physician Advisor’s Role in CDI” pre-con is back this year. Day one will be taught by James Kennedy, MD, CCS, CCDS, CDIP, president of CDIMD-Physician Champions near Nashville. Kennedy is known for his CDI quips, saying last year, “If the physicians says it quacks, waddles, and flies south for the winter, the coder cannot say it’s a duck. It might be a goose.”

Day two of this pre-con includes two tracks. The first led by Trey La Charité, MD, medical director for clinical integration and physician advisor for clinical integrity at the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville, shows how physician advisors can support their CDI teams in engaging with providers, providing meaningful educational outreach, and working across departments to prevent denials. The second track features a case study highlighting the physician advisor program University Hospitals Health System with Erica Remer, MD, FACEP, CCDS, founder and president of Erica Remer, MD, Inc., and Kelly Skorepa, BSN, RN, CCDS, corporate manager of CDI at University.