DCBA’S Clinical Documentation Improvement Programs Ahead of Others
Severity of illness issues major focus since inception
With the Federal Government’s announcement of the proposed rule for Inpatient Prospective Payment last April; other documentation programs have been scrambling to respond to the changes. DCBA’s program has been one of the few that has been driven by severity of illness and risk of mortality issues since we started.
"The Clinical Documentation Program offered by DCBA is by far the most progressive to prepare hospitals for all aspects of Severity Adjusted DRGs, Pay for Performance, Present on Admission, Quality Indicators and any other issues that each health system must be prepared to have a good grasp of for all the changes rapidly being integrated within the healthcare business. "
Randy Wagner, Wagner & Associates Clinical Information Consulting |
We have watched for years as others have promoted increasing your Case Mix Index as the method of proving effectiveness of a documentation program. We have seen others publish how important it is for hospitals to be on top of CC-Capture Rate as a measure of success and today’s reimbursements.
DCBA’s focus has always been working with the medical staff to teach them how to paint the picture of their patients in words that will demonstrate true severity of illness and risk of mortality. Using compliance as our benchmark, we have discouraged use of CMI and CC capture rate as a measure of success. We have recommended accuracy of documenting all aspects of the individual case, teaching physicians, documentation specialists and coders how to capture accurate and compliant data and to utilize severity-adjusted measures as the true method of demonstrating success.
And it WORKS.
Our processes are directed toward a medical-staff led program whereby the physicians and their mid-level providers develop an understanding of the clinical aspects of codes and how a true Clinical Documentation Improvement Program impacts them, their patients and their practices. |
