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Ready to take the CCS exam? Go for it—or perhaps you should wait until ICD-10 is implemented? That’s one of the questions addressed by two coding experts in this month’s E-News Exclusive. As if preparing for ICD-10 isn’t enough of a challenge, some ambitious coders also are setting their sights on passing the CCS exam. Learn how it’s possible to accomplish that noble goal without falling behind on ICD-10. — Lee DeOrio, editor How to Balance CCS Exam Prep With ICD-10 Training As frequent commentators, bloggers, educators, and consultants on various HIM topics, Pamela J. Haney, MS, RHIA, CCS, CIC, COC, and Mary Beth York, CCS, CCS-P, CIC, share their unique perspective. Q: Many coding training programs are bundling ICD-9-CM coding training with ICD-10 preparation. Do you feel this is an effective approach? York: I believe that bundling ICD-9-CM coding training with ICD-10 is too confusing for a new coder to try to learn both classification systems simultaneously. I compare it to learning French and Italian at the same time. The conventions of both classifications are basically the same; however, there are a few differences. The level of detail is higher with ICD-10-CM. Once you understand the ICD-9-CM classification system it will be easier to transition to ICD-10-CM. Full Story » ClearDATA Launches Next Evolution of Its Health Care Cloud ClearDATA recently announced the next evolution of its health care-dedicated, HIPAA-compliant cloud-computing platform. The latest version will enhance ClearDATA’s offering in every major area, including performance/speed, security, compliance, reliability, and usability. According to HIMSS, a vast majority of cloud users plan to expand their use yet many reported performance issues. “As the volume of data grows exponentially, health care providers and application developers can no longer afford to rely solely on internal infrastructure, which is why so many are looking to the cloud,” says Matt Ferrari, chief technology officer of ClearDATA. “They want assurances, however, that the performance, reliability, and usability levels they’re used to from internal systems will be there, and that all protected health information will remain secure. The enhancements to our HIPAA-compliant cloud platform push the boundaries in all these areas.” Read more »   E-News Exclusive ROI Peak Performers Realistic Expectations Key to Speech Recognition Success Auditors Take Aim at DRGs So You Want to Be a Privacy Officer? Fines Remain Rare Even as Health Data Breaches Multiply Fixing a Broken EHR Ask the Expert HIMSS Preview AAPC Preview Industry Insight Tech & Tools ROI Peak Performers Harried HIM departments may want to consider outsourcing all or part of their release-of-information functions to a third party. Read more » Realistic Expectations Key to Speech Recognition Success By being aware of what the technology can and can't do, health care organizations are more apt to achieve the desired results. Read more » Auditors Take Aim at DRGs Health care organizations must brace themselves for the inevitable perusal of their coding. Read more » So You Want to Be a Privacy Officer? Four industry veterans talk about the skills necessary to master this demanding, ever-evolving position. Read more »

The Windy City Hosts HIMSS15 By Heather Hogstrom This year’s conference and exhibition will head to HIMSS’ hometown of Chicago, taking place April 12-16. Offering plenty of opportunities to network, the conference will open with a speakeasy where attendees can mingle and enjoy refreshments and live music reminiscent of the Prohibition era. Speakers include former President George W. Bush; Alex Gourlay, president of Walgreens, who will discuss the company’s approach to adopting technology; Bruce D. Broussard, president and CEO of Humana, who will discuss how future health care innovations will be driven by consumer demand; and Jeremy Gutsche, founder of Trendhunter.com and author of Exploiting Chaos, who will offer a new outlook on innovation, disruption, and adaptation. Read more » HEALTHCON Doubles Its Sessions in Las Vegas By David Blackmer, MSC AAPC's annual national conference, HEALTHCON, is coming to Las Vegas this month (March 29 to April 1). This health care business event will be the organization’s largest ever, featuring 90-plus sessions (nearly twice as many as last year), with up to 18 continuing education units (CEUs) available. The educational sessions span a wide range of health care industry categories: general coding, specialty coding, ICD-10 coding, outpatient coding, inpatient coding, billing, compliance, auditing, and practice management. In addition to breakout sessions that cater to every occupation in the business side of medicine, there will be 10 general sessions that promise to benefit every attendee. To provide additional learning opportunities, AAPC's two popular expos (Anatomy and Business of Healthcare) will return, highlighting essential information at an engaging pace. The conference also boasts several additional, related events, including a clinical documentation improvement workshop, a variety of ICD-10 trainings, certification preparation classes and exams, local chapter leadership coaching, and a 4K charity run. Read more » The nation's top employers and recruiters of HIM talent advertise in For The Record magazine and post their job openings on AlliedHealthCareers.com. Check out the most recent opportunities that have been submitted by employers across the country! Certified Coder Abstractor—St Joseph's Regional Medical Center, NJ Coder—M*Modal, TN Medical Records Coder—Westchester Medical Center, NY Director—Summit Talent Group, TX For The Record offers many flexible advertising programs designed to maximize your results. From print advertising to e-newsletter sponsorships, website advertising to custom e-mail marketing, For The Record helps maximize your investment. E-mail our experienced account executives today for more information or call 800-278-4400! Coming up in our April issue is our Consulting & Outsourcing Showcase. Contact sales to secure a presence now. AlliedHealthCareers.com is the premier online resource to recruit HIM professionals. Post your open positions, view résumés and showcase your facility's offerings all at AlliedHealthCareers.com! For The Record's online gift shop features a wide variety of items for HIM professionals for any occasion. Whether you are searching for products to give friends or colleagues, hand out to clients, or wear yourself, finding the right gifts is easy and affordable at For The Record's online gift shop. Choose from t-shirts, journals, clocks, buttons, mouse pads, and much more! Check out our secure online shop today or call toll-free 877-809-1659 for easy and fast ordering. Have a coding or transcription question? Get an expert answer by sending an e-mail to edit@gvpub.com.   BEST4UMED Mobile App BEST4UMED is a mobile medical application software that can access all patient records in a flash and can be activated with the patient's fingerprint. Use of fingerprint medical software enables patients to provide complete health information to medical professionals through a central database, thus saving critical time in an emergency. Rather than filling out long medical forms when visiting clinics, medical practices, and hospitals, patients using the BEST4UMED mobile application can be identified by simply scanning their fingerprints. This highly complex system will require a significant amount of labor and start-up capital to become operational. The initial plan involves launching the application with 28,000 secured medical practitioners. Learn more » Nudge Android App The health and fitness app Nudge has announced a major Android update filled with new and fully redesigned features to make users’ health and fitness data more clear and meaningful. With the new visual feedback feature, users are able to see how their healthy lifestyle measures up against the average Nudge user or others of similar age and gender, allowing users to have a better understanding of where they rank health-wise with the overall world population. Other new features include calendar views, enhanced profiles, and editing capabilities. In addition to new capabilities that enable users to have a tailored view of their lifestyle habits and what needs improvement, Nudge is adding graphs that breakdown various aspects of wellness including hours of sleep, water drank, activity levels, and monthly habits to show users their progress over time. Nudge is also expanding its health-tech ecosystem by incorporating wearables from Withings and Garmin, in addition to those it already syncs with, including Fitbit, Strava, Moves, and Up by Jawbone. Learn more » Fines Remain Rare Even as Health Data Breaches Multiply Why aren't there more fines for HIPAA breaches? ProPublica examines the issue. Fixing a Broken EHR According to AHIMA, HIM professionals can play key roles in helping cure EHR ills. A Secure, Anonymous Résumé Bank Job Alerts Sent to Your E-mail