Coders Urged to Avoid Clinical Coding Risks

By Gloryanne Bryant, RHIA, CDIP, CCS, CCDS, AHIMA-Approved ICD-10-CM/PCS Trainer for ICD10 Monitor

Strive to achieve coding compliance that really works.

I’m often asked about how one would or should strive for coding compliance and make it happen. The first thing I do is to identify and acknowledge the risks or potential risks that occur. We all know that there are risks across healthcare, and some specific ones within health information management (HIM) and coding. The April 2017 report from Crowe Horwath titled, “20 of the Top Risk Areas in Healthcare” included these risk areas related to clinical coding:

• Clinical Documentation Improvement (CDI)
• Billing and collections
• Inpatient coding
• Charge capture
• Physician practice coding and billing

In addition to the above risks, I often watch and then review the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) reports relating to healthcare, as they do provide some very important findings and warnings to take heed of. Then there is your own external and internal auditing of documentation and coding which will help to identify risks.

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Article originally published on June 5, 2018 by ICD10 Monitor.