The Department of Justice (DOJ) recovered $2.5 billion in healthcare fraud recoveries for fiscal year (FY) 2010—the largest in history—and $3 billion in total civil fraud claims, according to a DOJ press release. Of that...Read More »
CMS has modified the additional documentation request (ADR) limits (i.e., medical record request limits) for the RAC program in 2011, according to document posted November 10 on the...Read More »
A recent ACDIS poll asked “which type of professional comprises the majority of your CDI program chart reviewers?” The greatest number of respondents (66%) indicated they primarily employed registered nurses (RNs)...Read More »
Recently, Robert S. Gold, MD, estimated that 60% of facilities nationwide implemented CDI programs, a best guess derived from an initial ACDIS survey taken in 2007 which put the percentage of acute care facilities with CDI programs at roughly 50.
CMS released the long-anticipated proposed rule for Medicaid recovery audit contractors (RACs) Friday November 5, setting the stage for the targeted April 2011 implementation date.
The use of Medicaid RACs is another initiative put forth by CMS as part of the Affordable Care Act—...Read More »
On October 14, we reported that CMS issued a controversial MLN Matters special edition (SE) article which stated that all inpatient admissions needed to have any/all ‘other’ or ‘secondary’ diagnoses documented by the attending physician.
In the spring, AHIMA released its “Guidance for Clinical Documentation Improvement Programs” in the Journal of AHIMA and also published its 41-page Clinical Documentation Improvement Toolkit. The documents offer sample job descriptions, definitions for documentation clarifications...Read More »
At the September 15, 2010 ICD-9-CM Coordination & Maintenance Committee Meeting, the committee implemented a partial freeze for both ICD-9-CM codes and ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS codes prior to the start of ICD-10 on October 1, 2013.
The partial freeze will occur as follows:...Read More »
