ACDIS Conference Preview

ACDIS Conference to Tackle ICD-10

By Heather Hogstrom

The Association of Clinical Documentation Improvement Specialists (ACDIS) seventh annual conference will take place May 7 to 9 in Las Vegas. The conference aims to put clinical documentation improvement (CDI) departments on track for ICD-10—despite the latest implementation delay—and has tailored sessions to meet CDI specialists’ needs, such as learning how to revise query processes, procedures, and forms; how to ask clinically appropriate clarifications; and which procedures CDI specialists may be asked to review in ICD-10.

Sessions include the top 20 ICD-10 documentation issues that cause diagnosis-related group (DRG) changes, ICD-10-CM/PCS documentation requirements for children’s hospitals, deciphering cardiovascular disease in ICD-10, and engaging oncology providers in CDI and ICD-10. An ICD-10 for CDI Boot Camp also will be held preconference to provide more in-depth ICD-10 education and help participants maximize ICD-10-CM documentation efforts for diagnoses commonly targeted by CDI specialists.

While ICD-10 is a hot topic, it’s not the only focus of this year’s ACDIS conference, which also is providing tracks on physician education and engagement, quality and CDI, documentation and coding, new initiatives, and program management. The physician education and engagement track covers CDI for medical students, gaining physician buy-in to CDI, and leading change, while the quality and CDI track includes topics such as improving quality outcomes data and integrating quality into your CDI program.

Sessions about documentation and coding include “Physician Queries: ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,’” “Who’s Driving the DRG Bus: Selecting the Appropriate Principal Diagnosis,” and “Where Did THAT Diagnosis Come From? Recognizing and Addressing Unreliable Diagnoses.”

Those interested in new initiatives can learn about the impact of health care reform on CDI, advancing CDI through innovative technologies, and emerging outpatient CDI drivers and technologies as well as the opportunities for CDI in the emergency department, inpatient psychiatry, and obstetrics. The program management track will outline program management for an innovative CDI team, instruct attendees on using data to drive improvement, and share successful strategies for bridging clinical documentation gaps in EHRs.

For more information and to register, visit www.hcpro.com/acdis.

— Heather Hogstrom is an editorial assistant at For The Record.