Articles for July 1, 2013

CDI Journal - Volume 7, Issue 3

Download the PDF of the entire July issue of the CDI Journal

July 1, 2013

Escalation policy addendum added to new AHIMA/ACDIS query practice brief,  p. 1

Director’s note, 5

Meet a member, 6

CDI for physician and facility improvement, 7

Medical necessity case study record review, 9

CDI mentors share knowledge, stories, 10

...Read More »
CDI Journal - Volume 7, Issue 3

Escalation policy addendum added to new AHIMA/ACDIS query practice brief

July 2, 2013
Education

Third-party regulatory agencies often question the clinical validity of a physician’s diagnosis. Most hospitals have had a Recovery Auditor deny a claim due to lack of documentation identifying supportive clinical indicators in the medical record. But until recently, CDI specialists and coders...Read More »
CDI Journal - Volume 7, Issue 3

Director’s Note: CDI, so much more than just reimbursement

July 1, 2013
ACDIS Guidance

Let’s face it: CDI is a large and growing profession in part because it increases hospital case-mix indexes and reimbursement. A good CDI program leads to accurate documentation of specific diagnoses, resulting in a more accurate representation of a patient’s severity of illness, and better...Read More »
CDI Journal - Volume 7, Issue 3

Meet a member: Brundages earn CCDS, expect first child

July 1, 2013
Education

Timothy N. Brundage, MD, CCDS, is a diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine and the principal of Brundage Medical Group, LLC (BMG). He has been a member of the ACDIS Advisory Board since 2011. He and his wife, Patty (a nurse practitioner who helps with CDI efforts of BMG), are...Read More »
CDI Journal - Volume 7, Issue 3

CDI goal: Documentation for the physician and the hospital

July 1, 2013
CDI Management

What is the goal of a CDI program? Most of the ones I see still focus on DRG optimization. We need to make the physicians allies of our CDI programs, and right now they are not. Instead, they are often targets of our queries. So how do you make the transition? By changing physician behavior one...Read More »
CDI Journal - Volume 7, Issue 3

Mentors provide CDI staff the gift of knowledge

July 1, 2013
CDI Management

When Kari S. Ellis, RN, accepted a CDI position at the small, 100-bed Daviess Community Hospital in Washington, Ind., she had no documentation improvement experience. So when Ellis reached out, Terri Leap, RN, BSN, MBA, CDI specialist at Wishard Hospital in Indianapolis began to consider...Read More »
CDI Journal - Volume 7, Issue 3

Defining and diagnosing acute respiratory failure

July 1, 2013
Clinical & Coding

by Trey La Charité, MD

On the surface, defining acute respiratory failure seems to be a relatively straightforward task. However,  many providers find it difficult to arrive at this diagnosis without repeated queries from the CDI  specialist. The discussion and examples that follow...Read More »
CDI Journal - Volume 7, Issue 3

Strive to improve clinical documentation in all settings

July 1, 2013
CDI Expansion

CDI initiatives often focus on inpatient documentation to ensure that the documentation accurately reflects patient severity. Capturing that documentation and specificity will be even more important as ICD-10 preparation and implementation efforts get underway. Yet ICD-10 implementation will...Read More »