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By Staff for RT Research has discovered that medical error is the third leading cause of death in the United States. With more than 250,000 deaths of this kind annually, researchers from Johns Hopkins University urge addressing systemic problems with the US system. There have been other estimates, including one by the Centers for Disease Control…
By Susan Morse for Healthcare IT News CMS said it plans to add about 1,900 diagnosis codes and 3,651 hospital inpatient procedure codes to the coding system. On Oct. 1, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will add another 5,500 codes to the ICD-10 diagnostic library, officials announced in a March 9 meeting. The addition will…
By Shannon Barnet for Becker’s Infection Control & Clinical Quality The Leapfrog Group has recognized 98 hospitals as Top Hospitals on its 2015 list, up from 94 hospitals in 2014 and 90 in 2013. The list recognizes organizations that performed at the highest national levels in quality and safety. All total, more than 1,600 hospitals…
By Laurie Desjardins, CPC-I for For The Record Vol. 27 No. 11 P. 6 The Social Security Act defines medical necessity as follows: “Notwithstanding any other provisions of this title, no payment may be made under Part A or Part B for any expenses incurred for items or services, which are not reasonable and necessary for the diagnosis…
Article by Karen Diop, RN, CDIP. This article was originally published on the Journal of AHIMA website in the “Coding Notes” section in November 2015 and is republished here with permission. Change has become a constant in healthcare. With the introduction of electronic health record (EHR) systems, core measures, the “meaningful use” EHR Incentive Program, value-based purchasing, and the…
By Dr. Jon Elion for ChartWise Medical Systems, Inc. In my blog entry of July 8, 2015, I summarized some of the history of the first international classification of diseases, a process that started in 1853 and was finally approved in 1893. While this was not officially called “ICD-1”, it was in fact the first international…
Written by John Smithwick for Healthcare Intelligence Network Getting patients diagnosed correctly and treated appropriately depends on providers gathering both quantitative data, which is typically structured, and qualitative data, which is typically unstructured. When comparing both types of data, it’s more challenging to manage and derive value from unstructured data. Structured data is that which…
Article by Chris Dimick, Editor-in-chief at the Journal of AHIMA. This article was originally published on the Journal of AHIMA website on May 4, 2015 and is republished here with permission. A bill has been introduced into the US House of Representatives that would stop the implementation of ICD-10-CM The bill, H.R. 2126, would “prohibit…
By Dr. Jonathan Elion, MD, FACC for HealthTECH Zone The Photographic Painting The value of a new technology is often not understood for many years after its invention. The first film cameras (remember those?) were initially used to capture landscapes, still life studies and portraits. In that regard, they were acting as a “photographic painting”,…
By iHealthBeat The ICD-10 implementation delay has negatively affected stakeholders’ progress preparing for the new code sets, according to a survey by the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange, Healthcare IT News reports (McCann, Healthcare IT News, 4/6). Background U.S. health care organizations are working to transition from ICD-9 to ICD-10 code sets by Oct. 1…