Wiki Coding audits

[Ksumansky]

Hello,
I was wondering if anyone has requested a company to come into their ASC centers to do coding audits? And if you have, how often? I have always believed that to be a good idea to ensure that the coders are not missing anything that could be coded incorrectly for an extended period of time. Any thoughts of this subject would be appreciated. Thank you

 

[ASC CODER]

That is always a good Idea. A coder should be audited every year. It is good both for the coder and the facility. Our ultimate goal is to follow ever changing guidelines and max reimbursement and compliance.... Some facilities hire outside companies some do inhouse.

 

[mhammy67]

coding audit

I am audited quartlery by my ASC. We use TCN (The Coding Network). At the end of each quarter we send in a goup of charts, they audit them and return my results. Pro: I can catch any misstakes early. I am a perfectionist so I like to know right away if there was something I was missing or misunderstand. Downside: I frequently find contradictions from audit to audit due to the fact they use different coders to audit me each time, so I guess it is a difference of interpretation?? I dont really know. Another example they mark me wrong on something that I learned through taking a class via AAPC and have the documentation to back myself up as to why I coded the way I did.

 

[SS62]

We send our audits to an outside company. However, we found that they have no knowledge of our contractual obligations, so alot of things were getting dinged that shouldnt have because of this. But otherwise, it really helped us see where we left money on the table..