Note from the Associate Editorial Director: Work with medical staff to mandate CDI orientation for new physicians

by Melissa Varnavas

Does your facility mandate its physicians participate in CDI orientation?

That’s the question SC ACDIS Chapter leader Rebecca “Ali” Williams, RN, BSN, CCDS, manager of documentation integrity for Spartanburg (SC) Regional Medical Center & Village Hospital asked fellow chapter members in April. Of those that responded, no one had.

“As far as the CDI education, no they are not required to have CDI training to be credentialed,” said Karen Ruth-Marini Carr, MS, BSN, RN, CCDS, CDI specialist at Grand Strand Regional Medical Center in Myrtle Beach. Carr hopes to work with the quality team at her facility to develop an orientation since the only mandatory information physicians receive covers OSHA and facility code-of-conduct requirements.

AnMed Health doesn’t tie credentialing to CDI education although it does provide a brief overview of the CDI program for residents every summer, says Tara Bell, RN, MSN, CCM, CDI coordinator at the Anderson, SC, facility.

Similarly, Greenville (SC) Hospital System University Medical Center educates its residents every July about the CDI program and its documentation improvement efforts, says Juanita “Nita” B. Seel, RN, CCDS, CDIP, documentation integrity supervisor there. “Of course, the residents are at the departmental educational meetings and our CDI specialists do a great job of educating physicians one-on-one,” she says.

But Williams wanted to expand her team’s CDI orientation efforts from all allied healthcare professionals (AHP) to all new physicians who had admitting privileges. So she moved forward with her plan, created a draft and brought her proposal to her facility’s Medical Executive Committee. They approved it.

In essence, Williams proposed that all new physicians with admitting privileges and AHPs attend a 30 minute education/CDI orientation session prior to privileges being granted. The facility credentialing team notifies the new physicians and AHPs about the requirements and includes a CDI education flyer in the new staff member’s material packet. It is then up to the new physician/AHP to contact Williams’ team to schedule their orientation meeting.

The training schedule is flexible and can be set at the CDI team/new physician’s convenience Monday through Friday. Once the training is complete, the CDI team notifies the credentialing team by sending them the sign-in sheet and entering the CME allocation.

Interested in adapting her proposal to your facility? Click here to view Williams’ proposal.

Want to join the conversation? Read what more than a dozen other members of ACDIS’ LinkedIn site had to say.

Editor's note: Varnavas is the associate editorial director of ACDIS. Contact her at mvarnavas@acdis.org.