On Feb. 5, Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center experienced an electronic health record (EHR) outage that began due to ransomware. This type of malware had shut down the hospital’s internal computer system and communication devices, with only a software “key” capable of reopening the internal data files. The hospital has reported…

In some quarters of healthcare, 2015 was the year of the big malaise. Although former President Jimmy Carter never actually uttered the word in his July 1979 speech about a “crisis of confidence,” his comments ultimately become known as the “malaise speech.”

Now that ICD-10 is a reality in U.S. healthcare, providers are finding that Oct. 1, 2015 didn’t bring with it the doomsday scenario they thought it might – but they also know that ICD-10-related challenges that aren’t apparent now may manifest themselves in the coming months.  The latest data from…

Many healthcare organizations recently have contracted with coding vendors to provide ICD-9 coding assistance, in part to allow in-house coders to undergo ICD-10 training and participate in dual coding. Some of these vendors employ U.S.-based coders only. However, it’s becoming more common for companies to employ a mix of both…

The healthcare industry may have finally flipped the switch to ICD-10, but many of us know that the hard work has only just begun.  For example, during the first week following implementation, H.I.M. ON CALL has spent considerable time gathering feedback from its coders, monitoring productivity, and keeping lines of…

After months, and, in some cases, years of training, coders have finally begun to code in ICD-10. However, just because ICD-10 officially went live on Oct. 1, doesn’t mean that coder training should cease. In fact, just the opposite is true.  Remedial training will be critical during the first six…

Efforts to fix what has been identified as the first significant issue to emerge under ICD-10 — medical necessity — appear to be underway with Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC) NGS reporting that it will update its local coverage determination (LCD). The LCD issue surfaced earlier this week, when Laurie Johnson,…

We are now within two weeks before ICD-10 implementation begins on Oct. 1, 2015. Going through your readiness checklist is a daily process, and at this point we all must ensure that there is nothing forgotten or skipped. The ICD-10 countdown checklist should include several key activities and areas, including…

We are now in the final few weeks before ICD-10 implementation, and it’s critical that coding and health information management (HIM) professionals take the appropriate steps along the way. You need to review your final checklist before Oct. 1 arrives – and to make sure you have in your checklist…

In this age of electronic health records (EHRs) and big data collection, data analytics continues to pique curiosity. With the simple click of a button, organizations can analyze and cross tabulate essentially any data they collect, including productivity data as well as data that is financial or clinical in nature.