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Those who have fought to keep their weight under control have undoubtedly embarked on a program to battle the bulge. Hard work and sacrifice are staples of any such effort. Now consider if it was impossible to tell whether the program was paying off.
Sounds riduculous, right? When it comes to health care organizations, sometimes it’s difficult to determine the effectiveness of a new initiative or technology. For those that have implemented computer-assisted coding, this month’s E-News Exclusive offers pointers on how best to ascertain whether the technology is doing its job.
— Lee DeOrio, editor |
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Measuring the Success
of Computer-Assisted Coding
By Jon Melling
As the switch to ICD-10 has officially passed, health care organizations are scrambling to improve productivity within their coding processes. Many organizations are exploring computer-assisted coding (CAC) as a means to improve efficiencies. By using natural language processing, CAC electronically identifies key terms within a medical document to determine the correct code needed for a billing statement. While the technology has been discussed for nearly two decades, it’s now a viable option for health care organizations, and a new sense of urgency has taken hold in the community to apply it in order to increase revenue while also cutting back the cost of coding.
Full Story » |
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Access to Doctors’ Notes Increases Med Adherence
In a two-year study, Geisinger researchers found that patient access to their doctors’ notes via a Web portal is associated with improved adherence to a medication regimen. This is the first large-scale study to show that access to doctors’ notes helps patients take their medicines as prescribed.
Among patients with access to notes from their primary care doctor, approximately 80% were adherent to antihypertensive medications in contrast with only approximately 75% of controls. While patient access to doctors’ notes did not appear to influence adherence to antihyperlipidemic medications, participating doctors pointed to a number of documentation issues that may explain those findings.
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Queries: It’s All in the Timing
How a physician query is delivered is secondary to when it’s delivered, experts say. Read more »
Health Care’s Patient Matching Challenge
Thought leaders are divided on whether a national patient identifier can remedy the situation. Read more »
Shootout at the Coding Corral
For two decades, Texas providers have waged battle with the OIG over the agency’s approach to Medicaid utilization review. Read more »
Beware of HIPAA Zealots
Misinterpretation of the law can damage patient relationships and lead to poor health outcomes. Read more » |
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PAs, NPs Do More ePrescribing
in Pediatric ED
A study of one pediatric emergency department found physician assistants and nurse practitioners ePrescribed 42% of the time, compared with 31% among physicians, according to MedCity News.
Would You Trust a Hospital
to Scan Your Fingerprint?
Using biometrics to identify patients and match them to their medical records is more accurate than using demographic data, but once a fingerprint is compromised, it’s compromised for good, reports KQED’s Future of You. |
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