CDI | Dolbey Systems, Inc.

General
2 mins

How hospitals can use Z codes to track social determinants of health

Georgina Gonzalez for Becker’s Hospital Review Z codes, which are ICD-10-CM codes used to identify non-medical factors that may affect a patient’s health status, are a useful way to track social determinants of health and capture standardized data for Medicare beneficiaries. However, they are underused, with Z codes reported from only 1.59 percent of beneficiaries…

Posted on:Oct 14, 2021
InGeneral

Featured
3 mins

Guest post: Support throughout a transition to CDI

By Kelly Sutton, RN, BSN, MHL, CCDS for ACDIS CDI Blog The transition into CDI from other avenues can be filled with overwhelming thoughts and emotions. In my experience as division educator, almost every CDI specialist will, at some point, have doubts about their career change. In the CDI specialist role, the relationships with physicians…

Posted on:Oct 14, 2021
InFeatured

Featured
4 mins

Guest post: The emotional toll of CDI during the pandemic

By Marlene Goodwin-Esola, MSN, CV-BC, NE-BC for ACDIS CDI Blog When I first entered the CDI field, I received feedback from someone who left this specialty expressing that her reason for leaving was that CDI was “too sad.” Her rationale was that as a CDI specialist, you might be reviewing a chart of a patient…

Posted on:Sep 30, 2021
InFeatured

Featured
7 mins

Guest post: A real life example of when not to query

By Howard Rodenberg, MD, MPH, CCDS for ACDIS CDI Blog In one of my recent efforts for the ACDIS Blog, I mentioned that there were times when it might be better not to query. I’ve also mentioned that before one sends a query, one needs to take into account the entire context of the patient encounter. I’d like…

Posted on:Sep 2, 2021
InFeatured
1 Comment

General
5 mins

Journal excerpt: Provider struggles

ACDIS Journal Excerpt from The ACDIS CDI Blog No matter the level of training and preparation you put into implementing a new technology, you’ll likely still encounter some struggles along the adoption journey. Inevitably, regardless of the project, there will always be a few troublesome providers, according to Vaughn Matacale, MD, CCDS, director of the CDI advisor…

Posted on:Aug 5, 2021
InGeneral

General
4 mins

Guest post: The problem of ‘critical values’

By Howard Rodenberg, MD, MPH, CCDS for ACDIS CDI Blog You would think that actually defining something would make it easier to recognize. That statement assumes, of course, that you can actually define what you’re trying to see. (I’m reminded of Justice Potter Stewart’s quote on obscenity, “I shall not today attempt further to define…

Posted on:Jul 21, 2021
InGeneral

Featured, General
8 mins

Guest post: Three things to consider before you query

By Howard Rodenberg, MD, MPH, CCDS for ACDIS CDI Blog I know this will come as a shock to my many (two) readers, but I’m not quite as perfect as I make myself out to be. I, too, have character flaws. One is that I ask questions. A lot of questions. I do so in…

Posted on:Jul 8, 2021
InFeatured, General

General
2 mins

Certain ICD-10 Codes Often Precede Multiple Sclerosis Diagnosis

For Health Day FRIDAY, June 25, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Certain International Classification of Diseases (ICD), Tenth Revision (ICD-10) codes are recorded more frequently before the initial diagnosis in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) compared with patients with other autoimmune diseases or individuals without these diseases, according to a study published in the June 15…

Posted on:Jul 8, 2021
InGeneral

General
4 mins

Guest post: Considering moral injury

By Howard Rodenberg, MD, MPH, CCDS for ACDIS CDI Blog One rarely thinks of CDI as having a moral dimension. But when we do think about it, we consider ourselves doing the “right thing” for patients to have their complexity of illness fully documented within the medical record. If we divorce ourselves from the financial…

Posted on:Jun 24, 2021
InGeneral

General
3 mins

ACDIS tip: Pneumonia documentation

By Kathryn Fallah from ACDIS CDI Blog According to the World Health Organization , pneumonia is a form of an acute respiratory infection that inflames the lungs. When CDI professionals review the record and ensure that the documentation of pneumonia is accurate and complete, they can impact reimbursement, risk of mortality scores, and risk adjustment. There are…

Posted on:Jun 10, 2021
InGeneral