Do you recall the recent humorous television commercial for phone services that featured children who wanted more and tried to explain why? The core message was that more isn't always better. I believe there are many applications of this principle in healthcare. To understand why this is the case, since large evolves from small, you might have to engage your sense of recall to visualize the past compared to the present. We'll look at some examples below.
Big (bad?) data
For all the talk about population health and big data, there is less discussion about data integrity, a key principle in data usage. Anyone who has worked with the most basic of databases, the master patient index, knows how many errors occur in collecting up-front patient access data. Errors still abound in duplicate medical record and account data. How can any of the data associated with these accounts be considered valid and worthy of basing conclusions upon? How confident are we, really, in our interpretation of this data?
For example, comparative MedPAR data will not display ICD-10-CM/PCS data until at least 18 months after ICD-10 implementation. There is no way to measure if we are undercoding, overcoding, erroneously coding, or problematically grouping any cases until we have enough data to make some judgments. Even then, the only true audit is one that compares the collected data with the source documents (in this case, the medical record). Organizations must conduct multiple rounds of these audits before findings can even be discussed.
The best approach is to begin your own audit of small segments (e.g., most common, most at risk) of diagnoses and procedures rather than waiting until the MedPAR data arrives. Be aware that if you are looking at any comparison databases, there is likely a crudely mapped comparison going on between ICD-9 databases (and ICD-10). As we all know, comparisons are not possible in all cases, and the more cross-mapping we do, the less granularly correct the comparison outcome data is, which decreases the validity of the universe of data.
In HIM, there are other data quality issues that have an unknown impact on integrity comparisons. For example, are we comparing apples to apples for sites that are using computer-assisted coding applications versus those that are not? Is it fair to compare outsourced coding with in-house coding? In a recent study conducted for a client, I observed that the time for coding of outsourced cases was dropping in a direct ratio to the case mix. Are we gaining productivity but sacrificing quality and reimbursement potential?
Last year, as ICD-10 implementation approached, organizations throughout the U.S. reported varying levels of comfort with regard to readiness and understanding of the impact of ICD-10 on physician workflow. For some, it was business as usual. For other physicians, ICD-10 became one more check box on the list of reasons to leave practice.
Our readers have been asking for an updated medical record documentation guide, and here it is?new and improved! The guide provides references to the associated CMS Conditions of Participation and new and revised standards and elements of performance (EP). A recent Joint Commission column discussed ongoing record reviews and the continued focus of Joint Commission surveyors related to documentation in the medical record. The guide takes the Record of Care, Treatment, and Services chapter and breaks it down into an easy-to-use tool for comprehensive record reviews by topic.
The number of drug overdoses related to opioids has more than quadrupled in the U.S. since 1999, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). As of 2014, some 2.5 million Americans were thought to have a substance abuse disorder related to prescription opioid painkillers or heroin?and they're coming into hospitals where case managers are increasingly being called on to manage their care.
"The substance abuse epidemic seems exactly like that, an epidemic, with the numbers of patients suffering from substance abuse growing, with many presenting to the hospitals with serious overdoses and/or medical complications of their drug habits," says June Stark, RN, BSN, MEd, director of care coordination at St. Elizabeth's Medical Center-Steward Healthcare in Boston.
Scarce resources and the complex needs of these patients make helping patients with opioid addictions a challenge. Not only do case managers need to manage the challenges and social issues that go along with addiction, such as homelessness and lack of family connections, but they may also struggle to find placements for patients?there just aren't enough beds out there, Stark says, a possible side effect of years of cutbacks and reductions in these types of care options.
While in the past, many patients came into St. Elizabeth's Comprehensive Addictions Program suffering from alcohol dependence, today there's been a huge increase in individuals abusing prescriptions and other opiates, says Mary Ellen Peters, RN, BSN, CARN, a substance abuse case manager at St. Elizabeth's Medical Center in Boston. The growing number of opioid users and the increased publicity surrounding this issue has prompted more people to come in and seek help, she says.
In Massachusetts, you can't pick up a newspaper without hearing stories of struggles with addiction and the community's effort to get ahead of the crisis, says Peters. Even police departments are changing their approach, arming police officers and first responders with a lifesaving opioid overdose-reversal treatment, Narcan. The Gloucester (MA) Police Department is not only using Narcan, but has publicly changed its focus to trying to get people treatment, not jail time, says Peters.
While some changes are in the works that may help future case management efforts, today's case managers still face major challenges. Peters says they manage these challenges by taking a multi-pronged approach to address patient needs, consisting of:
A thorough assessment
Community referrals for follow-up care
Reaching out to family members for support
A focus on reversing social issues, which provide barriers to recovery
OCR and HIPAA audits. Give you chills, don't they? Most covered entities (CE) naturally fear getting the letter from the HIPAA privacy and security enforcers saying that they're coming?or that they want something. "Something" usually means your policies and procedures, risk analysis, and mitigation efforts if you've suffered a breach. Bottom line: CEs want to avoid OCR unless they need to go to the agency for information on the HIPAA Privacy, Security, or Breach Notification rules
Subpoenas are a sometimes-unwelcome fact of life for privacy officers. They can be complicated, requesting broad amounts of information that is time-consuming to gather. They can be written in dense legal language that takes time and finesse to decipher. If a subpoena requests PHI, it can also raise privacy concerns and questions about how to honor the subpoena while releasing only the necessary information. Some subpoenas may request information that an organization considers sensitive for other reasons. It can be all too easy to put off dealing with a subpoena until the last minute, then rushing to react without taking the time to really read and understand what it says.
