by Sharme Brodie, RN, CCDS

Many people come to a CDI position and need to educate themselves in areas with which they have limited experience, leaving many new to the field wondering what they’ve gotten themselves into. Deciding which areas need education often depends upon the service line or specialty you previously worked in.

In the latest twist of the ongoing saga of Medicare claims denials and appeals, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered Medicare must clear its backlog, which currently approaches one million claims, HealthLeaders Media reported.

In 1999, the Institute of Medicine reported that medical errors represent one of the leading causes of mortality in the United States and noted that medical error–related deaths resulted in more than 50,000 preventable deaths and $20 billion in associated costs annually. Since then, the government has increasingly looked for ways to improve patient care and move away from its traditional fee-for-service reimbursement model.

Central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI) fell 91% and post-op venous thromboembolisms fell by 76%, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ) recent report “National Scorecard on Rates of Hospital-Acquired Conditions 2010 to 2015: Interim Data From National Efforts To Make Health Care Safer.” Overall, hospital-acquired conditions (HAC) dropped by 21% since 2010 for a cumulative total of 3.1 million fewer HACs, 125,000 fewer related deaths, and an estima

Q: Why is hospital-acquired pneumonia not considered a CMS hospital-acquired condition (HAC)?

A: This is confusing to a lot of people because of the similarity of terms used. Hospital-acquired pneumonia is a clinical descriptor. However, CMS’ hospital-acquired conditions are more of a payment classification than a clinical classification. Thus, those conditions that are certainly hospital acquired from a clinical perspective may or may not be a CMS hospital-acquired condition.

The deadline for poster presentation applications closes today, Thursday, December 15, at 5 p.m., eastern. Poster presentations allow participants to read and review details regarding an individual or facility CDI success story. Volunteers must commit to attend the 10^th annual ACDIS conference, which takes place May 9-12, 2017, at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, create a poster on their theme/topic, and be available to explain his or her poster to conference attendees during a dedicated viewing time during the event.

by Trey La Charité, MD, FACP, SFHM, CCDS

Your CDI program successfully obtained consistent results over the last few years, and all is right within the CDI world. Then, the facility case-mix index (CMI) unexpectedly drops. Provided it rebounds, one or two months below its usual average is probably not cause for a great deal of concern. But what happens when the CMI shows an overall downward trend for six months, or a year, or two years? To be blunt, making an initial positive impact with your new CDI program is the easy part. Maintaining that momentum over the long haul, year after year, is a more difficult task.

ACDIS provides continuing education units (CEUs) for CDI-related training and education activities that meet guidelines outlined on our recertification page (https://acdis.org/certification/recert) on the website.

CEUs for activities that provide training and education on CDI-related topics such as ICD-10-CM/PCS, clinical disease or diagnosis, disease process, coding, documentation improvement activities, related technology, DRG, reimbursement, anatomy and physiology, or diagnosis/pathophysiology education.