News

Q: Coding Clinic, Third Quarter 2011, p. 4 states:

“…morbid obesity is a chronic condition and; therefore, can be coded as a secondary diagnosis without treatment.” (emphasis added)

An article in the CDI Journal, “From the Forum: Manage denials for BMI morbid obesity,” seems to indicate that providers should document how the obesity affects patient care.

What level of patient care needs to be documented?

The Office for Civil Rights’ (OCR) guidance on patient access fees released earlier this year muddied the waters for providers and complicated the release of information (ROI) process, experts at the October 15–19 AHIMA national convention in Baltimore agreed.

What factors indicate that an observation stay would be covered?

Medicare beneficiaries sometimes have information about discharge planning from CMS. What questions might they ask as a result of having this information?

This week’s Medicare updates include the release of FY 2017 Dialysis Facility Reports and End Stage Renal Disease Core Survey Materials; the Denial of Home Health Payments When Required Patient Assessment Is Not Received; a Quality Payment Program fact sheet, and more!

CMS has awarded five new contracts for the next round of the Recovery Audit Program,

A massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack crippled New Hampshire-based Dyn, one of the major domain name system hosts that monitors and reroutes internet traffic, October 21 and raised