Talk Ten Tuesdays

To Link, or not to Link: That is the Question for Physician Documentation

November 27, 2018 Chuck Buck | Erica Remer, MD | Laurie M. Johnson | Jeffrey D. Lehrman, DPM | Terry Fletcher | Sharon Lee Savinsky, RN Episode 349
Talk Ten Tuesdays
To Link, or not to Link: That is the Question for Physician Documentation
Show Notes

Are you experiencing this dilemma at your facility? You ask your physicians to add linking verbiage to their documentation for accuracy, which in turn has a negative impact on their publicly reported scores regarding complications and other metrics. Should physicians exclude the linking verbiage? Should they enter “as expected,” or should they simply avoid addressing these issues? Reporting on this complex issue during the next edition of Talk Ten Tuesdays will be Sharon Savinsky, clinical documentation improvement specialist (CDIS) team manager at Winchester Medical Center in Winchester, Va.

Other segments to be featured on the broadcast include:

  • News Desk: Laurie Johnson will anchor the Talk Ten-Tuesdays News Desk. Johnson is a senior healthcare consultant with Revenue Cycle Solutions, LLC and an ICD10monitor contributor.   

  • Coding Report: Although the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released the final rule on the 2019 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS), Dr. Jeffrey Lehrman will report on one issue that CMS did not include in its extensive update.

  • Tuesday Focus: Alarms are being sounded because of the clinical and privacy issues being raised as a result of offshore coding. Terry Fletcher, a nationally recognized professional physician coding consultant, educator and auditor, will report this developing story.

  • TalkBack: Talk Ten Tuesdays co-host Erica Remer, MD, FACEP, CCDS, founder and president of Erica Remer, MD, Inc., will report on the recent decision by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) to conduct DRG validation audits.