Verbal or written, concurrent or retrospective—any way you slice it, physician queries continue to be one of CDI specialists’ most important tools. When ACDIS first examined how CDI programs conduct their query practices in 2009, the results stood as a baseline from which programs could define...
Q: AHIMA’s 2008 practice brief, “Managing an Effective Query Process,” appears to allow the initiation of post-bill queries as a result of...Read More »
This sample flow chart illustrates the physician query process from initial query submission through to resolution. Lynne Spryszak, RN, CCDS, CPC-A, CDI education director at HCPro, Inc., in Danvers, MA, included this chart in her 2010 audio conference presentation...
This is a classic documentation opportunity to clarify “volume/fluid overload,” says Lynne Spryszak, RN, CPC-A, CCDS, CDI education director for...Read More »
Signs or symptoms of an underlying condition should be coded only if the physician can not determine a definitive diagnosis. When the physician simply neglects or forgets to document the diagnosis, CDI staff can use this sample query template provided by Alesha Andrews, RHIT, CCS, and Adam...
Only 1.5% of the nearly 3,000 nonfederal hospitals in the United States reported the use of a comprehensive electronic medical record (EMR) system...Read More »
It’s not enough to know whether heart failure is systolic or diastolic. Congestive heart failure (CHF), for example, isn’t an inherent component...Read More »
