Q: If a complication was unavoidable, and has been documented as such, is that good enough reason to not code it? We wouldn’t mark a code as a patient safety indicator if it was an inherent part of the procedure, so would the same hold true for unavoidable complications?...Read More »
by Trey La Charité, MD, FACP, SFHM, CCS, CCDS
In the past, I have advised CDI professionals against promoting the monetary benefits of CDI adoption. If the medical staff thinks the program’s purpose is hospital revenue, they will likely rebel. Working in an academic institution, I...Read More »
“When I first started getting interested in the topic of CDI, […] I asked my more senior colleagues and got blank stares,” says Joseph A. Cristiano, MD, an assistant professor of internal medicine at Wake Forest Baptist Health in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Without the...Read More »
by Sharme Brodie, RN, CCDS
One thing many new CDI specialists hear—and many experienced CDI specialists attest to—is that the CDI profession requires an incredible amount of knowledge in numerous areas, not all of which you may have experience in. One such area may be neurology....Read More »
Amy S. Sterner, CCS, CCDS, CDIP, is a Clinical Documentation Specialist at Hanover Hospital in Hanover PA, and a member of the Central PA ACDIS local chapter. She joined the Hanover CDI team as a certified coder when the program opened seven years ago, rounds on the units and...Read More »
In 2016, ACDIS’ members top three challenges were physician engagement, physician education, and pushback against CDI efforts from physicians. Respondents to an ACDIS membership survey at the time listed staffing retention and recruitment as their next two priorities.
In 2004, TV talk-show host Oprah Winfrey gave brand-new Pontiacs to every person in her nearly 300-member studio audience. It was a marketing ploy— she’d filled the audience with folks who needed cars. Desperately. The remembered refrain from that episode: “...Read More »
