Hospital Facility Coding

Some hospitals, particularly smaller community facilities in limited labor markets and specialty hospitals, have a rough time finding experienced hospital coders. You can tell by the very substantial sign-on bonuses they have to offer, the legions of “headhunters” that exhibit at every conference, and the existence of an entire industry subset of itinerant traveling coders. Most traveling coders are “generalists” and don’t have specialty coding skills. What these solutions don’t offer is continuity and quality control. If you can lure a coder to your hospital with a sign-on bonus, will that person move again as soon as the check clears? The “headhunters” solution to continuity is “I’ll find you another (for another fee.)” Itinerant coders have no concern for continuity of service or productivity and can cause dissent among the hospital’s permanent staff. Do you need another Human Resources headache? Are you at the cusp of burning-out your staff with mandatory overtime? Providing up-and-comers within your hospital with training, mentoring, and a career path can be a time consuming and expensive solution that does not answer an immediate need. Poaching staff from a nearby competitor only serves to increase the salary range that both hospitals must pay. These choices are effectively treadmills; at the end of a run, you are at the same place where you started.

The Coding Network’s solution offers hospitals an opportunity to get off the treadmill and on with your business. We become an integral part of your HIM staff. Our work can be limited to just the ED, or just Outpatient Radiology, or just Outpatient Clinics, or we can support your staff of inpatient coders. Individual coders will be made available to you, and TCN coders become part of your team. They follow your coding policies and procedures. Since they work remotely and are paid using a totally different paradigm, there is no employee friction with your staff. Plus, with no required minimums, your management has much greater decision-making flexibility. With our accuracy guaranteed, you can try us for a while to see if TCN is a suitable solution for your hospital. If not, you can revise your staffing plan and recuruit coders without creating a human resources nightmare.

If you are offering your HIM staff training, mentoring, and a coding career path, what is to prevent misunderstandings and mistakes from being passed down from one coder to the next? Our coding accuracy audits address this issue as well as compliance and revenue optimization. Your staff will get an outside expert peer review with a complete and educational analysis of our findings. These audits can be the nidus of a Continuous Quality Assurance plan for your coders’ output and your staff mentoring efforts.

Hospital Facility Coding Background

• Directed by a renowned hospital coding expert who is a certified coder with RHIA credentials.
• Decades of experience in hospital coding and training hospital coders.
• Manager of a team of certified coders.
• Coding to address specific hospital areas including inpatient coding, emergency departments, ambulatory care, radiology (including interventional radiology), ambulatory surgery centers/same day surgery centers.

Hospital Facility Coding Need

• Well trained hospital facility coding specialists are difficult to find.
• Coder turnover is extremely high across the nation.
• Remotely located hospitals have great difficulty recruiting certified coders.
• Specialty coding within the hospital has become more complex with the advent of APC’s and APG’s.
• Hospital medical records departments often do not have the budget to recruit a sufficient number of coders to address their coding needs.
• Shortage of certified coders with extensive training and experience in hospital facility coding.
• Small or specialty hospitals cannot always cost-justify or afford to staff full-time or multiple coders to provide sufficient coding coverage.

Hospital Facility Coding Solution

• The Coding Network’s hospital coding services address the entire spectrum of hospital facility coding.
• 2-to-3 working day hospital coding turnaround via FedEx/UPS or remote HIPAA-compliant electronic coding solutions.
• The Coding Network’s pricing model assures productivity, not just fixed expense.
• A practical, cost effective and flexible solution to address your hospital coding needs.
• No minimums are required, so you can send us all or part of your daily volume; no need to hire another employee when all you need is overflow assistance.

Hospital Facility Coding Services

• Hospital coding services for inpatient services.
• Hospital ambulatory outpatient clinics coding.
• Hospital coding for emergency departments and emergency medicine physicians.
• Hospital coding for diagnostic radiology departments.
• Hospital coding for interventional radiology services.
• Hospital coding for ambulatory surgery centers and same day surgeryprograms
• Hospital coding for cardiac catheterization laboratories.
• Hospital coding for GI endoscopy services.
• Hospital coding for surgical pathology.
• Hospital coding for employed physicians
• Temporary coding services for vacations and sick leave.
• Backlog coding resolution services.
• Coding compliance audits to audit the accuracy of your staff coders.
• Documentation training services
• Hospital coding “helpline” services.