Tip: Narrow the focus of your physician education
CDI Strategies, May 1, 2008
Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to CDI Strategies!
When determining where to focus your physician education efforts, ask the following questions:
- What is our volume of symptom diagnosis-related groups (DRGs)? One goal should be to move these DRGs off of your top 15 DRGs list. If your top 15 list includes them, take small and realistic steps toward removing them. For example, set quarterly goals to achieve your ultimate goal. Remember that Rome was not built in a day.
- Do physicians continue to write symptom diagnoses after they discover more specified etiological factors? For example, does the physician document “chest pain” when he or she suspects gastroesophageal reflux disease?
- Does physician documentation outline why quality measures are not met? For example, one goal of the Surgical Care Improvement Project is to encourage physicians to discontinue antibiotics within a specified period depending on the specific surgical procedure. However, there are many clinically valid reasons as to why this may not be the most appropriate course of treatment. When this is the case, the physician must clearly document the reasons for continuing therapy.
(The above tip was excerpted from The Clinical Documentation Improvement Specialist’s Handbook, written by Colleen Garry, RN, BS, and published by HCPro, Inc. To learn more, click here).
Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to CDI Strategies!
Comments
0 comments on “Tip: Narrow the focus of your physician education ”
Related Products
Most Popular
- Articles
-
- Q/A: Volume requirement for reporting hydration services
- Featured blog post: Nurses face felony charges after reporting physician to the Texas Medical Board
- Catch up on what's new with injections and infusions
- Identify potential Medicaid RAC target areas
- HIPAA Q&A: Level of encryption needed for email
- Topic: CMS, OESS post new security compliance review information, checklist
- Capturing all necessary codes for IUD insertion and removal can be challenging
- What does case-mix index mean to you?
- OB services: Coding inside and outside of the package
- QA:Coding multiple initial infusions
- E-mailed
-
- Q/A: Volume requirement for reporting hydration services
- Featured blog post: Nurses face felony charges after reporting physician to the Texas Medical Board
- HIPAA Q&A: Level of encryption needed for email
- Q&A: Follow CMS' coding guidelines when using modifier -25
- What does case-mix index mean to you?
- Catch up on what's new with injections and infusions
- CMS has reformulated payments for some bilateral procedures
- New conflicts of interest create new challenges
- Q/A. One injection code or two?
- ED-to-inpatient transfers are flawed with safety gaps
- Searched