Merryman, who has had an internal auditor in place for several years, had one other outside audit done under ICD-9 about a year ago. The engagement between Torrance and Primeau, initiated by Torrance Memorial’s Director of HIM and Clinical Documentation and Coding Improvement, Melany Merryman, BA, MSL, RHIA, CRCR, was the hospital’s first outside coding audit under ICD-10.

The California-based hospital recently engaged Primeau Consulting Group to conduct a coding audit in the hopes of verifying internal audit findings and proactively identifying any problem areas that may exist at this stage in ICD-10. Torrance Memorial Medical Center is one provider organization interested in monitoring their coding performance under ICD-10 using the help of an unbiased outside party. Torrance Memorial Medical Center: A coding audit case study

Through the ICD-10 journey, many healthcare organizations are turning to third-party auditors to help them benchmark their performance thus far in the new coding environment. Physician practices and medical groups have worked hard to familiarize themselves with the new coding index while simultaneously preparing for MACRA’s new Quality Payment Program to kick off in early 2017. While ICD-10’s impact on claims denials and revenue cycle has been relatively quiet to date, coding professionals have faced challenges adapting to the granularity of the new system. All in all, the past year has seen a significant amount of change for the nation’s health information management and clinical coding teams. 1, 2016, for fiscal year 2017, accompanied by the end of a one-year grace period that granted providers flexibility on coding specificity during the first year of ICD-10. Approximately 5,500 new ICD-10 codes also were added on Oct. The healthcare industry is just over a year past the introduction of ICD-10, which grew the index of medical diagnosis codes more than five-fold, from 13,000 codes under ICD-9 to more than 68,000 codes today. All rights reserved.Debi Primeau, MA, RHIA, FAHIMA, President, Primeau Consulting Group

03).Īmong primary prevention ICD recipients, both baseline and follow-up LVEF were independently associated with long-term risk for appropriate ICD therapy, but they were not associated with time to the composite of LVAD, transplant, or death.Ĭopyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. In contrast, both baseline and follow-up LVEF were associated with risk for long-term ICD therapies, whether follow-up LVEF was modeled as a ≥10% absolute improvement (baseline LVEF HR 0.87, CI 0.91-0.93, P <. Neither baseline nor follow-up LVEF was significantly associated with the composite endpoint. Follow-up LVEF was examined using 2 definitions: (1) ≥10% improvement compared to baseline or (2) actual value of ≥40%.įifty patients (26%) had a LVEF improvement of ≥10% and 44 (23%) had a follow-up LVEF ≥40%. We examined multivariable Cox proportional hazard models with a 3-year post-implant landmark view the LVEF closest to the 3-year mark was considered the follow-up LVEF for analyses. The co-primary study endpoints were: (1) a composite of time to death, LVAD, or transplant and (2) appropriate ICD therapy. We studied 195 patients with a baseline LVEF ≤35% ≤6 months prior to ICD implantation and follow-up LVEF 1-3 years after ICD implantation without intervening left ventricular assist device (LVAD) or transplant. The relationship between baseline and long-term follow-up LVEF and clinical outcomes among primary prevention ICD patients remains unclear. Left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) is used to select patients for primary prevention implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs).

Hospital follow up icd 10