Wiki Training a Doc on E&M Doc.

[Viper66]

I've been working on coding & documentation with my physician for more than a year now, but haven't seen much change/improvement in understanding or execution. There's some implied pressure to use his choice of E&M codes, in spite of documentation deficiencies (we are experiencing decreased revenue, primarily driven by my attempts at defensible coding). Does anyone have suggestions on how to proceed under these circumstances?

I'll apologize in advance, as I suspect there are more than a few threads on this topic, but I've not stumbled across one yet. Feel free to direct me to another thread, if you think it might be helpful!

Thanks!

 

[LLovett]

Not sure what methods you have used but here is my input for what its worth.

I am a coder, I am not clinical, there are some physicians that do not want to hear what I have to say because of this fact. Sometimes it is beneficial for them to hear the same thing I have been saying from a peer instead of a coder. One option would be to have them sit thru some of Dr. Jensens presentations. These are at www.emuniversity.com. Once they understand they have to do this usually they are easier to work with and will listen to what the coder says.

I have worked with providers that go thru training like mention above, even going so far as having the physician coder in house training them in person, and they still are non-compliant. There are basically 2 different ways that we have dealt with them.

If they refuse to comply, I have seen administration fine them for poor audit results. After so many bad audits they are subject to termination. I have never had one get to the termination point but it is an option.

If they just don't get it or are under external scrutiny, we also have the option to take away the coding from them and do it interally or hire an external resource to do the coding. This is not an ideal fix but if you aren't going to get rid of them and they aren't coding correctly this is the only way to remain complaint and not put everyone at risk.

Good luck,

Laura, CPC, CPMA, CEMC