News

AMA is on track to revise E&M codes, set new documentation guidelines. The American Medical Association’s (AMA’s) CPT® Editorial Panel has approved many changes to the evaluation and management (E&M) documentation and coding guidelines. If finalized, the changes will shift the way practices select codes for both office and facility visits as…

Semantics aside, clinicians must recognize sepsis and treat it aggressively, to save lives. A few weeks ago, I had a fascinating discussion with Tim Brundage, a physician friend, and fellow clinical documentation improvement (CDI) expert, my co-chair on the American College of Physician Advisors (ACPA) CDI committee,  and I’d like…

National healthcare entities are teaming up and speaking out on how to make healthcare better. EDITOR’S NOTE: The following was discussed by Nachimson during last Tuesday’s Talk Ten Tuesdays live broadcast. There are two major and complementary rules to advance interoperability being proposed by U.S. Department of Health and Human…

Change was a key topic cited by the head of the national HIM advocacy organization. EDITOR’S NOTE: Valerie Watzlaf, 2019 American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) President and Chair, was a guest on the most recent Talk Ten Tuesdays broadcast. Here are her remarks from that broadcast. Thank you so…

New strategy holds promise for future extensions of this technology.A medical practice can now bill and collect for a specific telehealth service without the strict rules of the originating sites being outside of a Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) or in a rural Health Professional Shortage Area (HSPA) located in a…

As the provision of healthcare changes, so too must clinical documentation improvement. I have always been convinced of the strong capabilities of current clinical documentation integrity (CDI) initiatives to achieve tremendous improvement in the completeness and quality of documentation and communication of patient care in the electronic health record. Today’s…

E&M code changes are expected to become effective in 2021. The American Medical Association (AMA) released on March 8 the summary of panel actions that took place at the February 2019 CPT® panel meeting. The exact wording is not considered to be finalized until just prior to the release of…