In This Issue:
 President's Message
My Personal Health Record
Students Corner
Is It Time To Upgrade The 9 To 10?
The Future Is In The 10
Future Events
Kudos!
President's Message
DCHIMA- we are off to another great year! I am excited as we continue to strive to transform Healthcare! We went to the AHIMA Annual Convention in the month of October and three delegates attended. The House of Delegates (HOD) passed three resolutions: e-him Professional Standards intent, Quality Data and Documentation in the EHR and 2016 a Blueprint for Quality Education. The Diversity Resolution and PHR resolution were approved by electronic vote in September.
We had an opportunity to meet Dr. Benjamin Carson as he talked with us about thinking “Big” we also learned about Identity theft, MS-DRG’s and AHIMA had a press conference to kick off the PHR http://www.myphr.com/ .
In December we had a successful Educational Meeting at Providence Hospital in Washington, DC. We had several excellent topics such as the Legal EHR, PEPPER and Long Term Care. We want to thank all those who continue to support us, and the student volunteers from Montgomery College, Prince George’s Community College and Northern Virginia Community College who introduced speakers, setup the room and worked with the Educational Committee.
The time has come to Nominate Board members. We will have two vacant positions, President-Elect and Director of Education. I am asking each of you to take a look around at yourself and your peers. DCHIMA needs you!! This organization can only be as successful as our members and volunteers! So if you think we can do more or you can make a difference I want you to make a nomination for yourself or your associate! Nominate someone Today!! Please contact Patience Amartey patience.amartey@inova.org
On March 18 & 19, 2008 we will Co-Host along with VHIMA and AHIMA a Regional Coding Conference http://www.ahima.org/coding/ClinicalCodingVAHome.asp. Our Past Presidents Joyce Frazier and Corinne Smith will both be presenters along with Dr. James Kennedy and a host of other presenters.
In April we will host Winter Team Talk’s and Hill Day (April 7 & 8, 2008) and encourage all members to show up. We need volunteers to assist with this event! If you have not had an opportunity to lobby on Capital Hill you do not know what you are missing! This is a FREE event! This is a great opportunity to make a difference and we are fortunate to live in the Nations Capitol and if you have an opportunity to come out and enjoy yourself please don’t miss out!! For more information contact Jeanne Mansell Jeanne87@hotmail.com , Legislative Chair or log onto http://www.ahima.org/dc/hilldayinfo.asp .
Save the date June 6, 2008! Come out to the University of Maryland Inn and Conference Center for these years DCHIMA Annual Meeting as we recognize our Diversity! Many of us work in so many different areas. We recognize this and want each of you to take an active part of the association and an active part in our annual meeting so we have various speakers who will cover many Hot Topics! We look forward to seeing you there! Support DCHIMA this is your organization!
Remember “Think Big”! Do great things, and continue to be “Transformers”!!!
Start a Personal Health Record
Important information your PHR should include:
* Personal identification, including name and birth date
* People to contact in case of emergency
* Names, addresses, and phone numbers of your physician, dentist, and specialists
* Health insurance information
* Living wills, advance directives, or medical power of attorney
* Organ donor authorization
* A list and dates of significant illnesses and surgical procedures
* Current medications and dosages
* Immunizations and their dates
* Allergies or sensitivities to drugs or materials, such as latex
* Important events, dates, and hereditary conditions in your family history
* Results from a recent physical examination
* Opinions of specialists
* Important tests results; eye and dental records
* Correspondence between you and your provider(s)
* Current educational materials (or appropriate web links) relating to your health
* Any information you want to include about your health – such as your exercise regimen, any herbal medications you take and any counseling you may receive
For more information on how to start your personal health record go to www.myphr.com and click the start my personal health record link
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AHIMA and DCHIMA Scholarships
AHIMA’s Foundation of Research and Education (FORE) offers merit scholarships to outstanding undergraduate students pursuing degrees in health information administration and health information technology. Scholarships are also available to credentialed health information management (HIM) professionals pursuing graduate degrees in an area related to HIM practice.
Application is now available at WWW.AHIMA.ORG
Students (Certificate and Degree) are encouraged to apply for this scholarship. Requirements and qualifacations are also on the AHIMA web site
Application's deadline ------ Friday, APRIL 25, 2008
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Scholarships Provided by DCHIMA
The Sarah Plumb Frederick Memorial Scholarship Fund has been established by DCHIMA for the purpose of assisting students with financial needs who have maintained high academic standards, and who would otherwise be unable to meet requirements for tuition, textbooks, etc. to further their education.
Each year DCHIMA awards two scholarships to a health information management student and a coding certificate student. Applicants must be student members of DCHIMA in good standing, and meet other eligibility criteria as specified in the application.
To download the 2008 Sarah Plumb Frederick Memorial Scholarship Click Here
2008 Sarah Plumb Frederick Memorial Scholarship Applications must be received by Friday, April 11, 2008.
Send completed applications to:
DCHIMA
P. O. Box 3007
Crofton, MD 21114
For More Information on the scholarship fund , eligibility and terms please contact:
Michele Gowen, RHIA CCS
Email: magowen@us.med.navy.mil
Phone: 202-762-3743
Coding Concerns
Why ICD-9-CM Needs to be Replaced
The ICD-9-CM coding system is in serious crisis. Developed in the 1970s, it no longer fits with the 21st century healthcare system. ICD-9-CM should have been replaced 10 years ago. ICD-9-CM is used for many more purposes today than when it was originally developed and is no longer able to support today’s health information needs. The US is virtually the only industrial nation that has not upgraded its morbidity classification system. This failure threatens our ability to track and respond to international public health threats. Continued use of ICD-9-CM also diminishes the value of the US investment in SNOMED-CT®. The anticipated benefits of an electronic health record cannot be achieved if SNOMED-CT® must be aggregated into an antiquated classification system.
Specifically, ICD-9-CM:
* Lacks insufficient specificity and detail,
* Is running out of space, and the limited structural design cannot accommodate advances in medicine and medical technology and the growing need for quality data,
* Is obsolete and no longer reflects current knowledge of disease processes, contemporary medical terminology, or the modern practice of medicine,
* Hampers the ability to compare costs and outcomes of different medical technologies, and
* Cannot support the US transition to an interoperable health data exchange in the US
Replacing ICD-9-CM with ICD-10-CM is necessary in order to maintain clinical data comparability with the rest of the world concerning the conditions prompting healthcare services. The longer the healthcare industry continues to use ICD-9, the more difficult it becomes to share disease and mortality data at the time when such global data sharing is critical for public health. For example:
* ICD-10-CM would have better documented the West Nile Virus and SARS complexes for earlier detection and better tracking
* ICD-10-CM also provides the ability to track bio-terrorism events and other public health outbreaks.
The need to replace ICD-9-CM was identified more than 10 years ago, in 1993, when the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics (NCVHS) reported that ICD-9-CM was rapidly becoming outdated and recommended immediate US commitment to developing a migration to ICD-10 for morbidity and mortality coding. Similarly, the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), now the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), recommended that steps should be taken to improve the flexibility of ICD-9-CM or replace it with a more flexible option sometime after the year 2000.
Source: www.ahima.org
Coding in the future
Value of ICD-10
ICD-10 provides better data needed to meet the demands of an increasingly global and electronic healthcare environment. It provides a significant opportunity to improve the capture of information about the increasingly complex delivery of healthcare. ICD-10 will provide better data to support:
* Quality measurement and patient safety improvement activities
* Pay-for-performance initiatives
* Improved public health and bio-terrorism monitoring
* More accurate reimbursement rates
Complete, accurate, and up-to-date procedure codes are necessary in order to capture accurate data about the outcomes, efficacy, and costs of new medical technology and to ensure fair and equitable reimbursement policies for the use of this technology. Up-to-date diagnosis codes that reflect current medical knowledge are also important for accurate data capture in the use of new medical technology because they are used to:
* Substantiate the medical necessity of diagnostic and therapeutic services,
* Support the efficacy of the technology for various clinical conditions, and
* Identify complications and adverse effects from the use of the technology.
Continued use of the outdated version of ICD (ICD-9-CM) diminishes the value of the US investment in SNOMED-CT®. ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS are better suited for use in EHR systems than ICD-9-CM. The anticipated benefits of an EHR cannot be achieved if the reference terminology employed in the EHR, such as SNOMED-CT®, is aggregated into a 30-year old classification system such as ICD-9-CM for administrative use and indexing. ICD-10 coding system facilitates more robust mapping from SNOMED-CT clinical reference terminology in the EHR due to its greater size and granularity.
Benefits Outweigh the Costs
Extensive development and evaluation of ICD-10-CM/PCS as replacements for ICD-9-CM have been conducted. This includes system testing, completion of a comprehensive cost/benefit analysis, and hundreds of hours of testimony by experts who examined all sides of the issue.
The cost of doing nothing may be greater than implementation. Continuing to use ICD-9-CM will increasingly have an adverse impact on the value of healthcare data, including the accuracy of decisions based on faulty or imprecise data. Additionally, any delay in adoption of ICD-10 will cause an increase in future implementation costs. As the management of health information becomes increasingly electronic, costs of implementing new coding systems will increase due to required systems and application upgrades.
The Rand Report
The Rand Report is an independent study commissioned at the request of the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics (NCVHS). Rand concluded that benefits of ICD-10 are likely to exceed initial implementation costs within just a few years.
Implementation Costs include:
* Training
* Lost productivity during implementation and training
* System upgrades/changes
Future benefits include:
* More accurate payment for new procedures
* Fewer miscoded, rejected, and improper reimbursement claims
* Better understanding of the value of new procedures and healthcare outcomes
* mproved disease management
Rand estimates the cost of industry-wide implementation will be between $450 million and $1.115 billion. Even when using Rand’s highest cost estimates, the average cost per entity is less than $1,000 when amortized over the more than 2 million healthcare entities in the US.
AHIMA/AHA Field Study
In 2003, AHIMA and AHA conducted a field-test of ICD-10-CM medical code sets. The study shows ICD-10 is a significant improvement over the current ICD-9-CM coding system and can be implemented without excessive staff training costs or changes in documentation practices. Training ICD-9-CM users to use ICD-10-CM was shown to be relatively straightforward as ICD-10-CM retains the traditional ICD format and many of the same conventions. New training methods and the Internet will support cost effective retraining of coders.
AHIMA testified before the NCVHS that adoption of ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS would serve as a catalyst for the development of computer-assisted coding applications. In the NCVHS testimony, as well as in a practice brief titled “Delving into Computer-Assisted Coding,” several benefits of the use of computer-assisted coding technology were described:
* Increase in coding productivity,
* Increase in coding consistency,
* Increase in coding accuracy,
* Enhanced coding compliance,
* Potential decrease in coding costs, and
* Better documentation at lower cost.
As supported by AHIMA’s “Report on the Use of Health Information Technology to Enhance and
Expand Health Care Anti-Fraud Activities,” prepared under contract to the Office of National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, adoption of ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS would facilitate the prevention and detection of healthcare fraud. This report includes the following guiding principle in its conclusion and recommendations: “Standardized reference terminology and up to date classification systems that facilitate the automation of clinical coding are essential to the adoption of interoperable EHRs and the associated IT enabled healthcare fraud management programs.”
Upcoming Events for 2008
Make sure you mark off these dates in your calendar for 2008!
AHIMA REGIONAL CODING CONFERENCE
ACHIEVING CODING EXCELLENCE
March 18 -19, 2008
Hilton Alexandria Mark Center
Alexandria, VA
Registration
http://www.ahima.org/coding/ClinicalCodingVAHome.asp
Agenda
http://www.ahima.org/meetings/documents/AlexandriaAGENDA.doc
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Workflow Analysis: Foundation for Transitioning to e-HIM®
March 18 -19, 2008
Hilton Alexandria Mark Center
Alexandria, VA
http://www.ahima.org/meetings/WorkflowHomeVA.asp
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WINTER TEAM TALKS
Washington, DC
April 7, 2008
Renaissance M Street Hotel
http://www.ahima.org/meetings/WinterTeamTalks.asp
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Capitol Hill Day
"Marching on the Hill"
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
http://www.ahima.org/dc/hilldayinfo.asp
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Project Management
May 2, 2008
AHIMA National Office
Chicago, IL
http://www.ahima.org/meetings/ProjectManagement.asp
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DCHIMA ANNUAL MEETING
Friday June 6, 2008
University Of Maryland Inn & Conference Center
Adelphi, MD
http://www.dchima.org/meeting/meeting.html
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Long-Term Care Health Information Technology Summit
June 9-10
Baltimore's Tremonts Historic Venue and All-Suite Hotel
Baltimore, MD
http://www.ahima.org/meetings/ltc/LTCSummit.asp
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Congratulations graduate
DCHIMA would like to congratulate our new graduates. We are all proud of your achievement. Graduation is an end of one chapter and a beginning of a new and exciting future ahead. Be proud and show the world what HIM profession is about.
1. Michele Walden
2. Shiba Surti
3. Adelina Benjamin
4. Yolanda Forte
5. Erica Pinder
6. Karen Garvin
7. Nectina Bannister
8. Kaa Ndumbi
9. Venita Simpson
10. Anthony Falls
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