by James S. Kennedy, MD, CCS, CDIP, CCDS
Bronchopulmonary infections, such as acute bronchitis and pneumonia, represent frequent reasons for physician and facility encounters, resulting in ICD-10-CM code assignments that factor greatly in severity and risk adjustment inherent to...Read More »
by Joel Moorhead, MD, PhD, CPC
This article is about bringing the patient to the center of clinical validation. A patient with an “atypical” presentation, by definition, may have the disease but might not meet “typical” criteria for diagnosis.Read More »
With the criteria and definition of sepsis in flux, CDI specialists’ involvement in clarifying matters continues to grow. While the Surviving Sepsis Campaign seems to endorse the Sepsis-3 definition, CMS still uses the Sepsis-1 definition. The ACDIS Advisory Board sought to explore the confusion...Read More »
Septic patients can quickly deteriorate into severe sepsis cases if left unattended. “Once they have organ failure, it’s really hard to get those patients back,” Connie Chappelle, RN, MC, CLNC, risk management coordinator for Kansas University Medical Center (KUMC) in Kansas...Read More »
by Amy Czahor, RHIT, CDIP, CCS
Recently I was reviewing a data sample investigating the root cause of DRG discrepancies between CDI and coding. More than half of the cases with a discrepancy were attributed to a difference in principal diagnosis selection.Read More »
by Richard D. Pinson, MD, FACP
In its 2016 Third Quarter edition, the AHA’s Coding Clinic for ICD-10-CM/PCS clarified the use of the following two ICD-10 codes:
J44.0: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease with acute lower respiratory infection
The ICD-10-CM Official Guidelines for Coding and Reporting for the 2017 fiscal year (effective 10/1/2016) added a new directive. In Section I, subsection A, item 19, states that:
CDI specialists can pretty much come from any background in the medical field—from physicians, to nurses, to coders, and everything in between. While CDI specialists generally have the same day-to-day workflow (reviewing charts and sending queries), a specialist’s background prior to coming to...Read More »
