Clinical documentation improvement (CDI) ensures that health services are accurately documented and helps healthcare coders and physicians work toward improved patient care, while also streamlining productivity. When meaningful clinical data is captured, organizations can ensure improved quality reporting, clinician productivity, and even better – accurate clinical information is delivered at the point of care.

 

The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) has spearheaded the movement for CDI education and programs to ensure meaningful clinical data is captured for the purposes of quality reporting, claims reimbursement, public health information, and disease tracking.

 

The main message to physicians it that CDI is also a quality initiative -- so important in today’s value-based reimbursement environment. Physicians understand the need to make documentation legible, timely, complete, precise, and clear. They understand that the documentation is the legal health record. The advantages of quality clinical data are well known among physicians and the practice of evidence-based medicine -- and CDI can increase hospital revenue.

 

A recent Black Book Market Research report showed almost 90 percent of hospitals with 150 or more beds who outsourced clinical documentation functions made over $1.5 million in healthcare revenue and claims reimbursement after implementing CDI.

 

Black Book researchers didn’t mince words when it came to assessing the financial advantages of CDI: “CDI solutions are the critical link in ensuring full and timelier reimbursements from insurers and payers, as well as avoiding costly penalties for non-compliance, hence hospital chief financial officers have become the greatest advocates for outsourced end-to-end coding.”

 

Aviacode provides Clinical Documentation Improvement training -- both remotely and on-site -- that teach ways to improve reimbursement for ICD-10 coding, as well as help identify areas of relevant compliance concerns. Our Individualized training tools for physicians and their staffs help ensure accurate reimbursement, improved compliance, and adoption of value-based documentation.