A Note from the Associate Editorial Director: ACDIS publishes new physician advisor survey

It’s been four years since ACDIS asked its members to offer up their thoughts about the role of the physician advisor in clinical documentation improvement efforts. In those four years, much in the CDI world has changed but one thing hasn’t—CDI programs still say the role of the physician advisor needs to be better defined to be effective, according to a recently released survey and benchmarking report sponsored by Nuance.

“If there’s anything this survey data shows, it’s that physician advisors need to be trained and that many may need to be retrained,” says Louis Grujanac, MD, a Chicago-based independent consultant.

Well, that and the fact that we need more consistent job descriptions for our CDI physician advisors across the country and to hold those physician advisors more accountable to outcomes associated with those roles. In many instances, CDI specialist respondents indicated that their physician advisor was successful due to the fact that he or she was visible and accessible but later indicated there wasn’t any assessment plan in place or set of expectations for their physician advisor. Of course, it may be that those working principally to concurrently review inpatient medical records simply aren’t privy to information related to the details of their physician advisor’s position but more likely that such details simply do not exist.

So, I have a favor to ask of readers/ACDIS members—if you have a job description for your CDI physician advisor or an evaluation checklist for the role please consider sharing it with fellow members in the new resources section of the website. The more we share, the more we learn, and the better our programs all become.