Medical Billing Blog: Section - Medical Data

Archive of all Articles in the Medical Data Section

This is the archive containing links to all articles written in the Medical Data section of our blog.

Click any of the article links below to read the entire article or browse another section to the right to read articles on another subject.

Data can unlock capacity in the O.R. & drive better decision-making: Melissa’s Mention

“Optimizing operating room performance is a tough nut to crack for hospitals because true OR capacity is often uncaptured and underutilized due to rigid scheduling protocols. During a workshop sponsored by LeanTaaS at the Becker’s Hospital Review 9th Annual CEO + CFO Roundtable in November, Sanjeev Agrawal, president and COO of LeanTaaS, and Matt Ruby, director of business operations, surgical services at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, discussed challenges and available solutions related to efficient OR utilization. Four key takeaways: 1. Unused OR capacity leads to unrealized return on investment. The OR represents the economic backbone of hospitals but is often underutilized because of the rigidity of block scheduling and

Published By: Melissa's Mentions | No Comments

ICD-11: What it is, When it is Coming and How it Will Differ from ICD-10

ICD (International Classification of Diseases) is a universally accepted ranking system used by the WHO (World Health Organization) for categorizing physical and mental illnesses. ICD-11 is the eleventh edition of this categorization system. For about two decades, there have been no development or publishing of an update or revision to the ICD. The official presentation of ICD-11 at the World Health Assembly took place in May 2019 following its release on June 18, 2018. Member states are expected to adopt it as the official reporting system starting on January 1, 2022. However, it is still unknown when the U.S. Healthcare system will be ready to adopt it for use. ICD-11

Published By: Melissa Clark, CCS-P | No Comments

Defining the Role of a Medical Billing Clearing House

The importance of a clearing house in the medical world cannot be overemphasized. Also called Third Party Administrators (TPAs), clearing houses make healthcare payment seamless by serving as a link between the hospital, patient, and insurance provider. The role of the clearing house is to interact with the billing system of a hospital, clinic or physician’s office to evaluate medical claims. It sets up necessary documents for patients with claims before forwarding them to the insurer. Typically, a clearing house has strong ties with various insurance providers. Clearing houses aren’t restricted to just collecting documents and ensuring proper documentation for the claim/claims of patients, they are also saddled with the

Published By: Kathryn Etienne, CCS-P | No Comments

EHR Satisfaction and Ease of Use

If you are a healthcare worker in any field, you are probably aware of the HITECH Act.  This Act was the inception of the electronic medical record (EHR), and meaningful use.  Meaningful use was the proposal from CMS and ONC.  The idea was to have the electronic medical record have interoperable capabilities throughout the United States (cdc.gov 2019).  We know now that is not in effect.   The introduction of the HITECH Act was to demonstrate to the reader that the front line healthcare worker (Physician, Nurse, Physician Assistant, Certified Nurse Assistant, etc.), are the workers that are the most impacted by the use of the electronic medical record.  If

Published By: Michelle Bottone | No Comments

ICD Code Classifications for COVID-19

At the time I am writing this article, the U.S. has confirmed over 4.2 million cases of COVID-19 and 144,000 deaths nationwide, and as the threat of Coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to seemingly increase daily, The World Health Organization had to develop codes for classification of Covid-19 cases.   The World Health Organization Family of International Classifications (WHOFIC) Network Classification and Statistics Advisory Committee (CSAC) had an emergency meeting on 31st of January 2020 to discuss the creation of a specific code for the new coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19).   World Health Organization (WHO) has established a new International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) emergency code (U07.1, 2019-nCov acute respiratory disease). The virus

Published By: Melissa Clark, CCS-P | No Comments