I was recently discussing the state of EHRs in regard to the poor quality of the documentation with a colleague who has been a practicing HIM professional for more than 35 years and currently works for a large group of hospitals as the coding director.
Finding themselves at the center of a tumultuous, dynamic healthcare environment, physicians are becoming increasingly frustrated and anxious, frequently questioning their career choice. Preparation to be a lifelong healthcare provider inadequately prepares clinicians for the emerging value-based healthcare world to which they are being subjected. Physicians believe that they have little control over or input into the metrics that are rapidly determining their fates with healthcare organizations, third-party payers, and inevitably patients themselves.
It's been two years since the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) joined ACDIS to offer the industry physician query instructions in Guidelines for Achieving a Compliant Query Practice, published in February 2013.
It's been two years since the American Health Information Management Association joined ACDIS to offer the industry physician query instructions in Guidelines for Achieving a Compliant Query Practice, published in February 2013.
Since the implementation of the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (HVBP) Program in 2013, CMS has adjusted the MS-DRG payment for each traditional Medicare discharge. The type and amount of the adjustment, which could be a financial penalty and/or an incentive payment, is determined by the hospital's performance for defined quality measures, such as risk-adjusted mortality. Since that time, the number of pay for performance (P4P) programs and quality measures has expanded. By 2017, P4P payment adjustments will impact up to 6% of traditional Medicare revenue.
Even before ICD-10-CM was delayed until October 1, 2015, the quality of physician documentation to accommodate the new code set was a top concern for the healthcare industry.
