Seven coding challenges reveal a new compliance landscape in 2020. It’s here: 2020! This past year in healthcare, as in many years before, was full of changes, challenges, and some surprises as well. When trying to foresee the key future challenges in clinical coding, the following topics came to mind…

A clinician’s perspective on the AHA’s third-quarter coding clinic. I spoke at the inaugural combined Oregon Health Information Management Association (OHIMA) and ACDIS conference in Albany, Ore. last week. One of the comments I hear often when I speak to coders involves how much they appreciate getting a clinician’s perspective.…

Do your physicians and ancillary staff know the ICD-10-CM coding rules? Based on many years of personal experience, most physicians and ancillary staff who do not code really don’t know or understand the coding rules.  This is not particularly surprising, because even the best coders are sometimes confused by the…

Guidance and advice effective with discharges occurring on and after June 21, 2019. The American Hospital Association (AHA) Coding Clinic for ICD-10-CM/PCS for the second quarter of 2019 was released last month, and there are some interesting topics and guidance within this volume (Volume 6, Number 2). Due to copyright restrictions,…

The author shares her thoughts on atrial fibrillation in the AHA Q2 Coding Clinic. I reviewed the Coding Clinic from Second Quarter and disagree with the reasoning for the first question regarding atrial fibrillation, although I do not have a problem with their solution. Fortunately, after October 2019, the advice…

Guidance and advice effective with discharges occurring on and after March 20, 2019.  For coding and CDI (clinical documentation improvement/integrity) professionals, it’s exciting to read over the American Hospital Association (AHA) Coding Clinic on ICD-10-CM/PCS. This publication is a must-have document with must-follow guidance. Although ICD10 University held a webinar regarding…

Body mass index is a heavy topic. Spring has arrived in the Northeast and people are getting back to their exercise schedules. I was thinking about this topic as I was reading Coding Clinic, Fourth Quarter 2018. One of the big topics in this issue is body mass index (BMI)…

Diabetes could be a contributing factor without being the direct cause. In the first article in this series, I compared pressure ulcers and diabetic foot ulcers (the latter are considered non-pressure chronic ulcers in ICD-10-CM). My conclusion was that there is significant overlap, but heel ulcers are prime candidates to…

Even a podiatrist may not know for sure. When is a diabetic’s foot ulcer a pressure ulcer? When is a pressure ulcer a diabetic foot ulcer? These are the questions we are going to explore in this two-part series of articles elicited by my disgruntlement with the advice in the…

The author reports on the recently released American Hospital Association’s Coding Clinic. I was just able to free up the time to review the most recently published Coding Clinic (CC), and I will share my thoughts on the updates with you in this article. It took some energy to sort…