Are Your ICD 10 Coders Staying Up To Date? How Do You Know? When Is The Last Time You Asked About Changes?
July 21, 2021
Keeping ICD 10 Up-To Date:
Often times agencies have a coder(s) on staff. Therefore, this division of your company often ends up on an "island" to itself. Do those assigned to operations management in your company have a check and balance in place for coding? Most of the time the answer is no. So, in what ways can you support the professional growth and accuracy of your coding staff?
- Support the continuing education for your coding staff: While many agencies leave the CEUs required to maintain certification on the shoulders of the coder, the investment in their education is money well spent. It also keeps the coder engaged in the learning process. If not, then sometimes the education is what the coder can get for the cheapest cost online. This doesn't mean they are getting the quality education you hope to see staff receive.
- Ask questions. Your coders should be keeping up with changes and ongoing guidance. ICD 10 coding staff should be able to talk to you about the frequency in which they look for guidance and where they seek it. Look at what coding issues come up in auditing from CMS. Is your agency at risk? Are coding staff hooked up to a ListServ or discussion forum that help guide practice?
- Have a check-and-balance system for coding. Not only is it good to have a back-up plan in place for surge or when you expect absences from coding staff, It makes sense as a check-and-balance. We have to do on-site competency and supervision to all clinical staff. Why don't we have something in place for coders as a yearly supervision? You may think it is not necessary, but from an operations standpoint, doesn't it make complete sense? Have someone else recode 5 charts and see if things come out the same way. Having an objective eye look at your charts is a good thing. It isn't to question your staff, but to affirm to you and your board of directors that you are checking for quality and ongoing competency in line with other clinical departments. The reality is that agencies have had issues with coding when audits occur. Making sure you are not one of them is positive for your agency.
We Can Your Check And Balance, Back-up, or Coding Solution:
At Kenyon Homecare Consulting,
we have coding solutions that include Oasis review on admission and discharge and full service ICD 10 coding. We can be your back-up plan in cases of surge, expected/unexpected absences, or compliance checks. Call us today at 206-721-5091 or contact us online
to see how we can help you today! Call us today and we will complete 5 free recodes of your charts to help you take the fist step!
Results Based Consulting
Did you find value in this blog post? Imagine what we can do for your home care or hospice agency. Fill out the form below to see how we're leading the industry with innovation, affordability, and experience.
Contact Us
Managing compliance in the home care, home health, and hospice world is a challenge. Let's look at what it takes. It is necessary to be methodical and intentional.
Significant reductions is federal Medicaid funding has a huge impact to our nation's healthcare system to the tune of $911 billion over 10 years.
Somewhere in the mix of trying to improve patient care, the patients can get lost. The drive to to move to true patient centered care.
Quality of care issues present a range of challenges related to providing effective and safe care in a patient's home.
Infection Control breaches remain a problem in the home care industry. These are preventable errors for your surveys and in everyday practice.
Recruiting home care staff is challenging and costly, losing and replacing staff is worse. You also must consider lost opportunity costs.
One of the biggest challenges for home care and home health is the recruitment of staff to provide care. The high cost remains an issue for recruitment strategies.
There has been a growing issue with the supply of nurses and home care aides. This is particularly true for home care agencies. With the increased competition from hospitals, skilled nursing homes, Medicare home health and hospices for these workers, it has become increasingly difficult to recruit and hire.
HOPE Question and Answer Repository
Today, this article will look at little different than out typical articles. We all know the costs of losing employees and trying to hire and train new ones. It is exhausting and expensive. So, we think about our wages and benefit packages all the time. What can we do differently that makes people stay? We can’t change the job and we don’t want to keep people that don’t like the work itself. So, how do we acknowledge employees in a way that is valuable to them and that our businesses can afford to do? 5 Things To Consider About Employee Recognition At Your Christmas Party: 1. Years of Service: These can be based on milestone work anniversaries (5, 10, 15 yrs, etc.). If a person has been at your agency 11 years, you pull them up and acknowledge them in the group of employees who have been there at least 10 years up until the time they hit the 15 years landmark. This way longevity is recognized yearly. 2. Special Employee awards: Now, this may be difficult if your staff is very small, but acknowledge the employee who has gone the extra mile in the job they do. Tell the story. The employee needs to know when the employer is proud of the work that has been done. Consider a plaque or certificate. Don’t minimize the value of the employee having them to display. 3. Acknowledge all employees in the mix: Because we are a clinical industry, the administrative staff is often overlooked on day-to-day operations. Ultimately, don’t miss the chance to acknowledge the employee who was able to catch billing errors or collect on a large account. Staff doesn’t like to hear about money, but those types of collections keep Christmas bonuses in place! So, make sure the other staff knows the accomplishments of the finance department or the office manager that every caller loves to speak to. Don't ever forget the IT staff that is on call more than any clinical person in your agency! 4. Letters from the administration: Add a personal note to your staff either collectively or individually depending on the size of your agency. If you are larger, there are employees you don’t often see or get to talk to on a regular basis, so take the time so send a note with that Christmas bonus. 5. Consider the Christmas bonus: Listen, some of you can afford to do substantial monetary bonuses and that is fantastic. However, if you are not in that position, consider something in its place. Maybe small gas cards go with the letter from administration. With the cost of groceries, consider something that helps with the costs of daily living for employees. Big box gift cards in your area will always be used. You may do a lot of these things on a yearly basis to employees. All this being said, it doesn’t mean there aren’t reasons for acknowledgement throughout the year. However, your annual Christmas party is a good way to do it collectively. Between your annual party, write the individual cards to employees when you hear a patient interaction worthy of praise. Or, maybe you buy a gas card for the employee who has picked up extra shifts and always shows up on time. Ultimately, employees will feel valued. You will not regret the time, effort, and energy put into these efforts. Merry Christmas! If you want help with recruitment and retention strategies for your agency, please call Kenyon Homecare Consulting at 206-721-5091 or contact us online today.