By Allen Frady, RN-BSN, CCDS, CCS, CRC

Following the March Coordination and Maintenance Committee meeting on ICD-10, CMS released a number of code changes for the proposed fiscal year (FY) 2019 Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS). In addition to code changes, CMS has also proposed a few changes to CC/MCC designations and quality measures under the IPPS.

Before we dig into the changes, please remember that all these changes are only proposed. The final rule may look much different from the proposed version we have in front of us. For the time being, my recommendation is to review this article and a couple others and sit tight for the final rule. The real work and research will come in the August when the final rule documents are published.

As part of the FY 2019 IPPS proposed rule, CMS said they want to require hospitals to publish a list of their standard charges in a machine-readable format online and update them once per year.

Humana, Inc. launched a value-based Hospital Incentive Program that will pay general acute care hospitals more money for delivering on key quality and efficiency metrics.

The American Heart Association/American Stroke Association has rescinded its recently released stroke guidelines, publishing a correction in which large portions of the document have been deleted.

Q: Recently I’ve been given the opportunity to present CDI concepts at the quarterly medical staff meetings. They have given me 10 minutes each quarter to teach a topic. I am excited, but it also feels a bit daunting. How I can make a difference in four 10-minute sessions a year? Any words of guidance?

We’ve been counting up to a milestone—waiting to see who would be the 4,000^th person to earn the CCDS credential. It happened last Thursday when the exam proctor handed Jami Coler of Defiance, Ohio, her score report.

ACDIS is working on a credential for those specifically working in the outpatient arena—the Certified Clinical Documentation Specialist-Outpatient.

ACDIS will be happy to spread the news about your event to any attendees from your state and to publicize the event on your chapter’s page and here in CDI Strategies.