Note From the Advisory Board: What physicians want

by Sylvia Hoffman, RN, CCDS, CCDI, CDIP

I attended several medical conferences recently with my husband, a physician, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that physicians were talking about things such as ICD-10, readmission rates, length of stay, and other topics familiar to all of us in the CDI profession. I am usually reluctant to join in the conversation, fearful they will ask me what I do for a living. In the past, my occupation as a CDI consultant was not met with a warm welcome; at worst, I was met with uncomfortable silence.

Recently, however, I decided I would pull up my pantyhose and join in the discussion. Once physicians discovered I had knowledge of this mysterious world of coding and documentation improvement, they inundated me with questions.