News: IPPS final rule focused on quality

August 14, 2014

CDI Strategies - Volume 8, Issue 17

A significant portion of updates in the Fiscal Year 2015 IPPS final rule pertain to the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) Program, the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, and the Hospital-Acquired Condition (HAC) Reduction Program.

"The IPPS rule speaks strongly about quality and the patient care quality initiatives that CMS is driving and supporting," says Gloryanne Bryant, RHIA, CDIP, CCS, CCDS, AHIMA-approved ICD-10-CM/PCS trainer, national director of Coding Quality, Education, Systems, and Support for Kaiser Permanente Hospitals and Health Plan - Revenue Cycle.

This quality focus creates a need for increased interdisciplinary collaboration across CDI, quality, HIM, risk management, revenue cycle, compliance, and technology.

“The 2015 IPPS rule emphasizes that hospitals, physicians, coders, and clinical documentation integrity staff must understand the risk-adjustment methodologies inherent to value-based purchasing,” says James S. Kennedy, MD, CCS, CDIP, president of CDIMD – Physician Champions in Smyrna, Tennessee. “These complex documentation requirements must be woven into the hospital’s EMR fabric so as to not impede the physician’s natural work flow or burden him or her with numerous post-discharge queries.”

Editor’s Note: ACDIS members received this Breaking News alert previously. Read the complete report at HCPro.com

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