Editor’s note: The following timeline contains step-by-step guidance for meeting the ICD-10 go-live date of October 1, 2013, collected and approved by the ACDIS advisory board. It includes material from the “AHIMA ICD- 10-CM/PCS Transition: Planning and Preparation Checklist.” It can be...Read More »
Q: Are there any coding guidelines/definitions regarding code 518.5 (Pulmonary insufficiency following trauma and surgery) vs. the use of 518.81 (Acute respiratory failure postop)? If a physician documents postop respiratory failure, which code should we report? I looked in Coding Clinic...Read More »
CDI specialists should know what to look for when reviewing cancer admissions in order to capture the true severity of these patients’ illnesses. Often patients are discharged with the diagnosis of “possible” or “probable” cancer when the pathology report is...Read More »
Wouldn’t it be nice if every service line in your hospital fully embraced your CDI program’s goals? How frustrating is it when all of the clinical indicators for a given diagnosis are placed squarely under the nose of one of your physicians—only to be...Read More »
Attached is a supplement to the April 2011 issue of CDI Journal. It provides important updates every CDI specialist should know regarding new guidance issued in AHA Coding Clinic for ICD-9-CM for both the first quarter of 2011. The author of the article is James Kennedy, MD,...Read More »
Clinical documentation plays a vital role in all coding. It is especially important, however, when reporting conditions such as stroke, which more often than not involves multiple symptoms, diagnoses, and complications.
Through the years, The American Hospital Association’s (AHA) ...Read More »
The transition from ICD-9-CM Volume 3 procedure codes to ICD-10-PCS will be by all accounts a significant adjustment, writes Shannon E. McCall, RHIA, CCS, CCS-P, CPC, CEMC, CPC-I, CCDS, director of HIM and coding at HCPro, Inc., and an AHIMA-certified ICD-10 trainer. In her...Read More »
by Trey La Charité, MD
Every institution reading this column has likely received its first recovery audit contractor (RAC) denials regarding the documentation and coding of excisional debridement procedures (86.22).
Our hospital is no exception. While we knew that this...Read More »
