Carolinas Regional Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (CRAHDI)

Home
Coming Events
CRAHDI Newsletter
President's Message
Delegate Update
Links
Just for Fun
Archives
Classified
Components News Corner
2009 Symposium Pictures
Event Registration
SC Chapter News
AHDI Board Update
Contact Us
Site Map
 CRAHDI NEWSLETTER 
 
Check out our next Webinar with Brenda Hurley, CMT, AHDI-F

  

 

 

Go to our Coming Events page to see some of the great comments we received about the November 7th Symposium.  We had a blast! If you missed it this year, make a point of not missing it next year. 

CRAHDI 2010 Symposium Save The Date Flyer.doc 

 

 


 

CCI Announces RAC and RADV Audit Assistance

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wexford, PA. — March 3, 2009 — Compliance Concepts, Inc. (CCI) expands their existing healthcare compliance consulting services to include Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) and Risk Assessment Data Validation (RADV) assistance. Through a partnership with Cura Software Solutions®, CCI has developed an exclusive RAC management module - “RxRAC” - to assist providers in managing the volumes and complexities of RAC audits.

CCI was established over a decade ago with a mission to assist healthcare providers nationwide in achieving, ensuring and demonstrating continued compliance with the myriad laws, rules and regulations that impact the industry on a daily basis.

As CMS mandates multiple avenues to identify potential overpayments, such as through the RAC audits, CCI is prepared to assist providers in coding, billing and medical necessity reviews.  Providers should begin self-audits as soon as possible to decrease their potential denials and ensure continued compliance with applicable rules and regulations.  And once a RAC audit is initiated, providers will be required to perform quick and thorough assessments of selected encounters, and determine appropriate resolution strategies.  CCI’s team of experts, which consists exclusively of seasoned professionals with over 15 years of healthcare experience, can assist hospitals, physicians and all providers in managing and surviving RAC audits.

The CMS RAC demonstration project took place in five states and ended in March 2008. This external audit program, designed to identify underpayments and overpayments to providers and suppliers, will become permanent and will be expanded to all 50 states by 2010. CMS just recently announced that the temporary suspension of the RAC program has been lifted, and that the expanded RAC audits will soon be underway.

Since the completion of the RADV pilot program, CMS has started implementing additional RADV audits to analyze if differences in coding between Medicare Advantage (MA) plans and Fee – For – Services (FFS) providers are the result of coding patterns or of underlying beneficiary health status.  “CMS is announcing a new audit initiative to determine the accuracy of the diagnosis code information submitted to CMS by MA plans. CMS will audit the medical records from a sample of plans including those with high, medium, and low risk score differences.  As errors of coding are identified, CMS will reconcile payments to correct for these errors at the plan level. The results of these audits will also help CMS to establish whether differences in risk scores between MA plans and FFS Medicare are attributable to differences in coding patterns, and therefore, to determine whether an adjustment to rates would be appropriate for 2010” - per CMS website: www.cms.hhs.gov.

For more information contact Donna Wilson at dwilson@ccius.com for RAC assistance, Lyn Chew at lchew@ccius.com for RADV assistance, or sales@ccius.com for general information on any of our services.

About Compliance Concepts, Inc.

Compliance Concepts, Inc. (CCI), incorporated in July 1997, was established to help organizations create a controlled environment that reinforces the commitment of the organization to compliance and provide a framework for compliance which reduces the likelihood of errors or situations of non-compliance.

 

 

ADDED:  5-8-09

Knowledge is Everything

Every year in May, AHDI celebrates the critical role that healthcare documentation specialists play in the accurate capture and documentation ofpatient encounter information. Inlight of our shifting economy, the evolution of enabling technologies (like the EHR and SRT), and theworkforce challenges our sector is facing, AHDI is urging all stakeholders in our sector to acknowledge the critical role that an interpretive, skilled knowledge worker will continue to play in the electronic future of healthcare delivery.

As we celebrate the impact MTs and editors have on the accuratecapture of clinical data, AHDI iscalling all healthcare documentation workers to prepare for the future of our industry and be ready to step in to the new roles that will emerge in the EHR. It is the interpretive clinical KNOWLEDGE of this skilled worker that will continue to make the difference betweenrisk and quality in healthcare documentation.

To that end, AHDI is promoting our MT Week theme - Knowledge is Everything - calling all students, postgraduates, and working MTs in the industry to embrace the path of greatest potential relevance in the future:

      • Graduate from an ACCP-approved school
      • Earn your RMT credential upon graduating from your MT program
      • AdoptBenchmark KB to stay on the cutting edge of clinical information
      • Become an AHDI member and get engaged in professional development and lifelong learning
      • Embrace level II credentialing through the CMTexam

We believe this will be the path to success in the future of healthcare. 

Are you ready for the future?

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=65381393453

 

 

 

 

We've been busy....

 

 
Click on the article links to the right to read your
CRAHDI Newsletter

Articles (If after clicking on the articles below you get a box asking for your log-in and password, just hit CANCEL and the document should upload and open) Articles are in Word or pdf Format.

 

CRAHDI APPLICATION.doc

 

CDA for Common Document Types.doc

 

The Case for A Credentialed Work Force.doc

 

Why Get Involved in CRAHDI.doc

 

 

CRAHDI 2010 Symposium Save The Date Flyer.doc

 

Letter Writing Instructions-2.pdf

 

HOD meeting 02-17-2010.doc