We are four months into the new fiscal year and the Office of Inspector General (OIG) has finally released its highly anticipated Work Plan. Click the link above for more information and an in-depth analysis.
On January 31, CMS announced on its Inpatient Hospital Reviews website that it extended the probe and educate period for implementation of the 2-midnight benchmark through September 30, 2014. Along with the announcement of the extension, it also released an updated version of the guidance documents on inpatient hospital reviews and on the new order and certification requirements. Click the link above for more information and an in-depth analysis.
Communication is a major portion of the documentation and coding conundrum. Creating avenues for information exchange with the physician community is essential to the success of clinical documentation improvement (CDI) and the capture of coded data. Physicians take a variety of courses (e.g., pathology, physiology, disease manifestations, etiology, and process) throughout their academic medical education. However, their education does not address the importance or the details of documenting medical terminology with specific information that corresponds to ICD-9 and ICD-10 codes. Physician profiles and scorecards have been linked to ICD-9-CM codes; physician awareness of this and future linkage to ICD-10 is necessary.
CMS has finalized changes to packaged services and E/M CPT® codes for clinic visits with the much-anticipated November 27, 2013 release of the 2014 outpatient prospective payment system (OPPS) final rule.
The road to ICD-10 has been a long one, and we still have many miles ahead of us. Organizations have invested a significant amount of time and money into this venture, and even though October 1 is rapidly approaching, there’s still work to be done before and after implementation.
Although the majority of the provisions of the HIPAA Omnibus Rule have become effective, many Breach Notification Rule revisions cause confusion for organizations.
