Reader Question: Hospital Administration

Question: My hospital has a very hierarchical management structure, and nobody has asked me or any of the other coders what we think about ambulatory payment classifications (APCs). I think the administration doesnt understand the scope of the changes, and Im worried. How can I draw attention to the problem without putting my job in jeopardy?

Oregon Subscriber

Answer: The best solution would be to prepare a discussion document that clearly outlines the issues as they relate to your area of responsibility. If you dont feel comfortable doing this yourself, do some online research or review coding journals and forward copies of informative articles to administrators to help them understand what outside experts are recommending.

Perhaps you should select a small sample of records to show how they were billed and reimbursed prior to APCs, then recode them with the APC guidelines with estimates of their reimbursement. This could be a collaborative effort from the members of your APC task force, if one exists, or at the very least, between the coders and the billers.

- Published on 2000-07-01