By Penny Richards

Ah. Thanksgiving.

While the ACDIS team will be out of the office for the Thanksgiving holiday and Black Friday, we know that the opportunities for mishaps requiring medical attention are far too plentiful to mention. We wouldn’t want to leave you without ACDIS’ guidance in this trying time, so I've compiled a short list of codes that might prove helpful to the on-duty clinical documentation specialist.

Saint Antony Hospital in Chicago decided to sue the Leapfrog Group over its alleged use of inaccurate information when it lowered the hospital’s patient safety grades.

ACDIS members are invited to participate in today’s quarterly conference call at 1 p.m. eastern. This will be the last call of 2017, so don’t miss it!

ACDIS likes to be invited to its local chapter’s leadership planning meetings. It offers the national administration an opportunity to serve as a resource to the chapter’s volunteers.

Q: I have a question regarding unilateral weakness from a previous stroke. The patient has ongoing weakness in both right arm and leg post cerebrovascular accident (CVA) and associated ataxia post CVA in 2013. Is it accurate to code I69? That doesn’t seem specific enough. And, does this map to HCC 103?

CMS has extended the Physician Compare preview through December 1. The data will become public on the Physician Compare website starting in December.

Because the ACDIS office will be closed, CDI Strategies is also taking Thanksgiving day, Thursday, November 23, off.

As many as 10,000 heart failure patients could die prematurely each year because of misguided efforts that keep them out of the hospital.

While the data gleaned from the polls shows up in a variety of ACDIS offerings, the data can also benefit you, the ACDIS members.