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Accomplish documentation education without losing your sanity

HIM Connection, April 1, 2003

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Dear Colleagues:

The prospect of educating and training your staff on documentation issues might seem daunting at first. You might ask yourself where you're going to find the time, the staff, and resources to train the HIM department, never mind educating the other staff members in the facility who need documentation training.

As the HIM director in your organization, it is a good idea to inform all related parties about the role that you and your staff can play in decreasing compliance exposure. You might want to ask them for training suggestions and help in designating educational sessions.

It is particularly important not to get bogged down with political issues. Often, a task can be delayed when it involves inter-departmental communications and cooperation. This is exactly why you must develop and refine communications as a part of your compliance plan. As the HIM director, you need to champion all of the compliance causes for which you and your departments are the experts, and there are many of them.

Inform management that if you take on a training role and the increased responsibility that goes with it, you need additional resources. This is a basic business tenet; an increased workload means you need to increase your staff. To receive these additional resources, stress the importance of the compliance function and remind management that it's better to spend a small amount on training now, rather than millions in fines and loss of reputation later.

The OIG's Compliance Program Guidance states that every facility is expected to implement an effective compliance plan--regardless of the cost to the facility. It basically acknowledges that compliance can be expensive, but it's worth the additional expenditures.

If you are unable to garner the time and staff to conduct educational sessions, and other related tasks, your facility could contract out the education function. If you do, remember to completely assess any firm that provides compliance education for your organization. You need to validate a firm's credentials, experience, and reputation. This is an area of significant risk for your organization; you could increase that risk by contracting with an unqualified vendor. This week's HIM Connection was adapted from the book "Seven Steps to HIM Compliance" by Ruthann Russo, JD, ART. This comprehensive guidebook is designed to help readers develop an effective HIM compliance plan that suits the organization's unique culture and complements its system-wide corporate compliance program. For more information, or to order your copy, click here.

Sincerely,

Laura Motta
Editorial Assistant
lmotta@hcpro.com

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