November 15, 2017
Advanced Registration Extended thru Nov 28 - Save $50 Today!
Join health information and coding professionals to gain valuable insight of the CPT updates for calendar year 2018 and how these changes might impact your health care organization. Common misconceptions on coding appropriately for E&M services and Outpatient CDI processes will be reviewed as we examine and share methods on how to reduce risk and establish an outpatient CDI program within your facility.

  • 2018 Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) Coding Updates
  • Evaluation and Management (E&M) Coding/Documentation Guidelines
  • Outpatient Clinical Document Improvement (CDI) Processes
Presenter Becky Rodrian, MBS, BSN, CCS-P, CPC, CEMC, CPEDC, is the Director of Professional Consulting Services at Panacea Healthcare Solutions. Throughout her 20 years of experience, Ms. Rodrian has provided education to physicians, physician extenders and mid-level practitioners nationally and is passionate about striving to educate health care professionals with proper interpretation of coding guidelines and regulations.
Come learn with the best as we prepare for the 2018 changes together. 
Register by November 28 and save $50.
Current and Future HIM Job Opportunities Survey
The AHIMA HIM Reimagined (HIMR) Innovation and Possibilities Subgroup is researching the trends in health information technology (Health IT) which are creating new opportunities for HIM professionals. Have you ever wondered what types of emerging HIM roles you could perform in the midst of rapidly evolving HealthIT impacting changes in the delivery of health care? The AHIMA HIMR Innovation and Possibilities Subgroup welcomes your thoughts and encourages you to complete this mini-survey to share your feedback on current and emerging roles for the HIM workforce.

Survey closes November 30, 2017. Submissions are anonymous, so let your imagination about innovative HIM job roles soar!
PEPPER for the HIM Professional
TMF Health Quality Institute is contracted with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to develop, produce and disseminate provider-specific comparative data reports, referred to as the Program for Evaluating Payment Patterns Electronic Report, or PEPPER. PEPPER summarizes one provider’s Medicare claims data statistics for areas that have been identified as at higher risk for improper Medicare payments. Providers can use the PEPPER to identify where they may be at higher risk for improper payments so they can consider their statistics and whether they should take any action, such as reviewing a sample of records to ensure care provided was necessary and that documentation supports the diagnosis codes and services billed. 

TMF Health Quality Institute would like to encourage providers to access this free comparative billing report and utilize it as a tool to support their auditing and monitoring efforts.  

Learn more about PEPPER here or visit PEPPERresources.org for more information on sample reports, user’s guides, recorded training sessions and national-level comparative data. View the PEPPER distribution schedule and information on how to get your organization’s PEPPER.
For more information on this topic, watch the CHIA Webinar on Demand “PEPPER for the HIM Professional” presented by TMF Health Quality Institute Director Kimberly Hrehor.

This session provides an introduction and history to PEPPER, reviews the target areas and how they were identified for inclusion, and a brief review of the types of reports in the PEPPER and how they can be interpreted.
CHIA Confidentiality & Security Publication - Revised 2017
Confidentiality & Security: Protecting and Releasing Health Information in California 2017 - Now available for purchase
CHIA Members $85 / CHIA Non-Members $95

This publication is designed to inform HIM and other health care professionals about the HIPAA privacy and security rules, and reviews situations where providers are called upon to disclose information -- including releases pursuant to court orders, subpoenas, reporting requirements, patient treatment regimens, and billing and payment activities.
  
2017 Additions:
  • New DHHS guidelines concerning patient rights of access to PHI
  • Attorneys as “patient representatives” accessing patient records on the patient's behalf
  • Revisions to California Evidence Code, Section 1158
  • HIPAA Phase 2 audits
  • New HIPAA enforcement initiatives
Are you ready for the next stage in your health information career? Make your first stop the
Job Seekers
  • Discover HIM opportunities
  • Create job alerts
  • Anonymously post resumes
  • Professional resume evaluation
  • And more

Employers
  • Manage online recruiting
  • Post jobs efficiently & affordably
  • Search the Resume Bank
  • Setup pre-screen filters
  • And more
Latest HIM News Updates
Finalized MACRA Rule Incentivizes Remote Patient Monitoring 
Center for Connected Health Policy; Nov 14, 2017

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on Thursday released a final rule on the Quality Payment Program , a program established by the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA), to reward physicians for value and outcomes through a merit-based incentive payment system or through an advanced alterative payment model. The agency’s goal with this rule was to reduce administrative burden and support clinicians in small and rural practices. One of the many changes made in the rule is to incentivize providers to use remote patient monitoring tools in their practice. They state in their reasoning that “We believe that the use of digital technologies that provide either one-way or two-way data between MIPS eligible clinicians and patients is valuable, including for the purposes of promoting patient self-management, enabling remote monitoring, and detecting early indicators of treatment failure.”  
 
Comments on the rule for the second and future years of the Quality Payment Program are due Jan. 1, 2018.
New Opioid Addiction-Documentation Tip Sheet from AHIMA
Journal of AHIMA; Nov 8, 2017

Opioid addiction has been declared a public health emergency in the United States. It is vital that organizations and providers provide high quality clinical documentation, to guarantee the data which drives research and education on this topic is based on the correct information. There are seven characteristics of high quality clinical documentation. If a provider learns how to document using these characteristics to guide their documentation habits, they will provide trustworthy documentation.

This tip sheet, available as a PDF download at the beginning of this post, has been developed to guide providers in learning the documentation elements that are needed when documenting opioid use, abuse, or dependency. In the tip sheet, each of the seven characteristics of high quality clinical documentation are listed in the first column. Under the example column are scenarios of when each of these characteristics is missing within the clinical documentation. The final column provides an example of poor documentation that is frequently seen in opioid documentation. Then there is an explanation of the missing clarity followed by what a high quality documentation statement would look like.
UC San Diego, UC Irvine Share Cloud-Based EHR
Greg Slabodkin for Health Data Management; Nov 15, 2017

In an effort to increase operational efficiencies and decrease patient costs, UC San Diego Health and UC Irvine Health are now sharing a single cloud-based Epic electronic health records system, marking the first time that such a system has been extended from one U.S. academic medical center to another.

“We were approached by UC Irvine about the opportunity to share our instance and extend it to them,” says Christopher Longhurst, MD, chief information officer at UC San Diego Health. “After some analysis, we felt like it was the right thing for both organizations.”

The shared system integrates patient records from both UC San Diego and UC Irvine. According to Longhurst, UC Irvine’s go-live using UC San Diego’s version of Epic occurred earlier this month. He adds that its system is also supporting UC Riverside Health clinics and community practice affiliates as a cost-saving arrangement to improve coordination of care among physicians.
CHIA Events Calendar
Confidentiality: Protecting & Releasing Health Information in California
Wednesday, November 15 - Garden Grove
Thursday, November 16 - Dublin

Best Practices for Coding Audits and Compliance Strategies
Thursday, November 30 - Live Webinar

Unbundling the Madness: CPT Updates, E&M Codes and OP CDI Processes
Tuesday, December 5 – Irvine
Wednesday, December 6 – Sacramento

CHIA Student Chat
Thursday, December 7 - Live Webinar

CDI Application in Renal Disease
Wednesday, December 13 - Live Webinar

HIPAA Compliance on a Shoe String Budget
Tuesday, December 19 - Live Webinar

HIM Professionals Role in MACRA
Wednesday, January 10 - Live Webinar

A Respiratory System A&P and Coding Review
Wednesday, January 21 - Live Webinar

Advanced ICD-10 Coding Workshop - Day 1 PCS
Friday, February 9 - Garden Grove

Advanced ICD-10 Coding Workshop - Day 2 CM
Saturday, February 10 - Garden Grove