If the October 1, 2014, implementation date for ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS is not altered by the time this is published, there will be 18 months left until the transition.
HIM directors must revisit and potentially refine processes for patient record restriction requests and requests for electronic copies of medical records because of the HHS HIPAA omnibus final rule.
Everyone knows that CCs and MCCs are under scrutiny these days. However, that doesn't mean hospitals should err on the side of caution when reporting these conditions. William E. Haik, MD, FCCP, CDIP, director of DRG Review, Inc., in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., provides several tips that coders can employ to look for clinical evidence in the record before querying for these targeted conditions.
Q. Can paper patient records be kept in a public storage unit? The storage company we are considering has a digital entry at its main gate, and we would have a keyed lock on the storage unit door.
When HIM professionals at Driscoll Children's Hospital in Corpus Christi, Texas, looked into its success rate for physician response to coding queries, it knew it needed to do a better job.
