Health Information Management

Membership Update: Productivity and program structure benchmarking report released

CDI Strategies, May 8, 2014

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According to 49.8% of 592 survey respondents, the majority of CDI programs continue to be housed in the HIM department, the “2014 CDI Program Productivity and Program Structure Benchmarking Report” states.

CDI programs reporting to other departments may run into relationship challenges, communication concerns, and competing priorities, which can affect program assessment and its relative success, says ACDIS Advisory Board member Wendy Clesi, RN, CCDS, director of CDI services at Huff DRG Review, Inc., in Eads, Tenn.

Some CDI programs do successfully report to departments besides HIM, but these differences in program structure and priorities make productivity assessments difficult to quantify, according to the report.

The majority of CDI professionals (76.9%) expect their program productivity to decrease as ICD-10-CM/PCS implementation begins, and as staff begin to query and educate physicians about additional documentation needs.

“The productivity requirements of 20 charts per day is difficult to meet especially since we implemented a new software program and other measures,” wrote one respondent. “The administrators want us to eventually review 30 charts per day, but whipping through the charts does not necessarily mean that there will be a greater impact. It takes time to carefully review the charts in order for the reviews to be of any value.”

Editor’s Note: ACDIS members have access to this special benchmarking report in the April edition of the CDI Journal.



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