Wiki Acceptable or not

The Joint Commission has a list of unacceptable abbreviations...and I am assuming you're in a private practice and are not surveyed under the JC. With that, none of the abbreviations you listed is on that list.

However, from a legal medical records perspective, a physician's documentation must clearly illustrate the intent of the visit and the information gathered in a way to support the medical necessity of the visit. Depending on who may view the documentation, there is a risk that his abbreviations may not be understood (certainly payers might question this and ask for refunds).

I always instruct providers to avoid the use of abbreviations if possible, if only to make the documentation crystal clear in case of litigation. An attorney would have a field day with this.
 
Your practice should have a list of their typical abbreviations used that are not standard medical abbreviations. That list should be sent with every documentation request or given to any health plan performing a desk-audit.

Here's AHIMA's take on this, and found at: http://library.ahima.org/Pages/~/link.aspx?_id=22CACC4320764A7FB7A2200455369849&_z=z

"Use of AbbreviationsEvery facility should set a standard for acceptable abbreviations to be used in the medical record (develop a facility-specific abbreviation list). Only those abbreviations approved by the facility should be used in the medical record. When there is more than one meaning for an approved abbreviation, facilities chose one meaning or identify the context in which the abbreviation is to be used."



For the Joint Commissions Unacceptable Abbreviations, you'll want to review these links:

https://www.jointcommission.org/facts_about_do_not_use_list/

http://www.jointcommission.org/assets/1/18/dnu_list.pdf

Good luck!
 
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