When Carolyn Taggett, RHIT, director of health information services at Northern Maine Medical Center in Fort Kent, found that it sometimes took weeks for coders to receive answers to their physician queries, she decided there had to be a better way.
Efforts to educate medical staff members on Medicare or other payer policies can be like herding cats. However, it is necessary to ensure compliance. The case management department cannot improve level of care decisions without cooperation from medical staff members.
There are some Joint Commission EPs with which almost all hospital HIM departments struggle. Surveyors continue to focus on them, so chances are you should too.
Even with today's tight budgets, there are still ways you can brighten the faces of your staff members. We asked the MRB advisory board members for their best ideas and tried-and-true tactics. Here's what they had to say.
