We are now beginning our 12th year of coding education and we continue to refine our teaching format to maximize the learning experience. Instead of having hours of continuous lectures, we begin hands-on documenting and coding early and continue throughout the day. The patient examples are arranged to present progressively complex scenarios. Small groups are utilized extensively to improve coding skills, retention of the material, as well as facilitating networking with like-minded peers.
ICD-10. About an hour will be spent explaining the new ICD-10 coding system. You will become familiar with this new system and be able to easily find and convert your codes as needed. You will receive tools with your syllabus that will enable you both to browse the ICD-10 code set and also a tool to easily convert your existing superbill/ICD-9 diagnoses to the ICD-10 equivalent. ICD-10 will not be a problem for your practice unless you do not prepare!
Most of the time will be spent in outlining exactly how to transition your staff, your office, and your EMR system to start using the new codes. We will discuss methods to ensure appropriate compliance and pitfalls that could come with the new coding system.
New format. All new coding examples and notes will be used this year. Instead of having long stretches of lecture followed by long stretches of examples, I have re-worked the entire seminar. Starting from the beginning we will tackle documentation and coding specifics with progress notes. Specific lectures and talks will be spaced throughout the day to handle documentation issues as they arise. The net benefit of this for you is we will rarely have any lecture that lasts more than 10-15 minutes that is not broken up by hands-on interactive learning.
The seven essential items to protecting your charts from audits. There is nothing you can do to make your documentation “audit-proof”. However, these items will make sure that when you are audited, there is no question about why you coded a specific note in a certain way.
Workflow essentials for documentation. You’ve heard lots of ideas discussed before about improving workflow in the office. I’m going to give five specific items that will improve how quickly you document. Let’s spend less time writing and more time doing other things.
Essentials of Meaningful Use. Many of us have started to report meaningful use. We will discuss the four essential steps involved and help you implement strategies to make this part of your practice as efficient as your documentation and coding.