Healthcare organizations should look at outpatient and ambulatory clinical documentation improvement with specific attention on achieving proper reimbursement, according to Mark Hendricks, vice president of product management at nThrive.
Mr. Hendricks shared the following advice with Becker's Hospital Review.
"The outpatient/ambulatory CDI lens must have the ability to focus on audits to protect revenue and prevent denials. This focus will allow organizations to create clinical documentation that aligns clinical and financial information for more efficient care delivery and reimbursement. Specifically, this lens will guide physicians to document all conditions to the greatest specificity each year so the physicians receive the appropriate reimbursement for the care provided. If quality and accuracy 'gaps' are identified, a variety of educational modalities can be delivered to the appropriate audience (coder and/or clinicians) to improve clinical documentation content and adherence to coding guidelines."
If you would like to share your RCM best practices, please email Kelly Gooch at kgooch@beckershealthcare.com to be featured in the "RCM tip of the day" series.
More articles on healthcare finance:
Highmark Health sees net income rise to $1.1B in 2017
CHS hires debt advisers: 4 things to know
Financial updates from Cleveland Clinic, UPMC & 4 other systems