RACs Are Back on
the Road!
The
contract bid protests that temporarily halted the RAC
program have been resolved and RACs are back in
business!
Click here to learn more.
THIMA and THA are
offering three RACs workshops to help YOU get ready for
these audits –
Click here for more information or visit the THIMA
calendar.
top
“My Family Health Portrait by the Surgeon General”
Family history is very important; it is the source for
identifying risk of disease and this enables physicians
to provide better care. The Surgeon General has
launched a
website that provides family health history. The
tool is simple to access and use, and it only takes
about twenty minutes maximum to complete the basic
family health history. The health portrait also allows
you to share your information with others. What about
privacy? The Surgeon General does not make the
information public to anyone else or the government.
When opting to share the information with a family
member, the software will reform itself to make that
particular family member the center and will connect the
other family member to the correct relationship in the
family. It is recommended that when this personal
health information is sent by email it should be
encrypted. The information can be shared verbally or
stored on a memory stick.
It is important that the Family Health Portrait be
Electronic Health Record ready. Sources that are being
used to insure that the health tool is interoperable in
the EHR world are HL7 vocabulary, LOINC, SNOMED-CT,
etc. Because the system is electronic, it can improve
the quality and cost of care. As a bonus it will help
the physician have an accurate record of the patient’s
health history.
Organizations can adopt and customize family health
portrait to their particular office features, such as
links to other organizations or websites that apply to
their patients’ conditions. A code is provided from
Surgeon General which will allow the organizations to
use the tool openly. More importantly the information
collected under my family health portrait is covered
under HIPPA Privacy Rule.
top
AHIMA
2009 Strategic Planning Session
The AHIMA Board of Directors of AHIMA just had its
annual Strategic Work Session (SWS) in January. The
focus of the SWS was titled “From the Future, Back” and
focused on how AHIMA should plan for the future –
focusing to 2105. The group used a new approach in
that they utilized Scenario Planning positioning their
mindset for future scenarios.
The SWS was composed of AHIMA board members along with
members of the FORE board, vendors, corporate directors,
CEOs and leaders from other organizations and
Commissions (CAHIIM, COC), and Gloryann Bryant to lend
ICD-10 expertise.
The Plan to Plan (P2P) a subgroup of AHIMA-BOD began
work last year to build toward the scenario planning
concept. Scenario planning focuses on the realm of
future possibilities and the multiple forces that
influence those possibilities. The scenarios are based
on trends, forces of change, and uncertainties that
operate within certain boundaries. This type of
planning also helps to identify weaknesses that must be
considered. The Committee based much of their work and
scenario planning from the AHIMA survey that went out to
AHIMA members from September to December 2008. The
consulting firm Decision Strategies International (DSI)
was used to outline future possibilities for the HIM
industry and how that future would impact the
Association. They strategized these survey results and
placed them within four boundaries. The committee
divided into four groups to focus on these four
boundaries and on how the Association and our profession
could thrive within them. They utilized long term and
short term planning so that quick decisions could be
made within the association. They identified trends in
the healthcare environment and focused on extremes that
could be encountered from now until 2015. The four
groups directed their attention toward trends concerning
government involvement in healthcare and data
interoperability. For example, eHIM has been strongly
encouraged and supported by legislation and the
Presidential administration, but has not yet been
funded. Should the economic stimulus package pass with
the eHIM goals included, this would strongly impact the
eHIM initiatives. Each group projected the impact of
these trends on items like credentialing, volunteering,
membership, finances, and knowledge needed within the
AHIMA organization and the profession as a whole. In
determining the effect these trends would have
specifically for AHIMA, it was apparent that skills sets
involving healthcare analytics would be imperative. The
final process for the SWS will be that a subgroup of the
BOD will meet February to June 2009 to focus on
organizational options for AHIMA based on implications
from the scenarios discussed and their outcomes at that
point.
AHIMA board member Rita Bowen called the meeting with
the new format of Scenario planning “enlightening”.
This was her fourth experience at an AHIMA strategic
planning meeting and she felt this new approach would
help facilitate those who lead to respond quickly and
efficiently to the changes within the healthcare /eHIM
environment. This was a first experience for AHIMA
strategic planning for board member Mary Reeves. She
felt that the diverse perspectives represented at each
table were fascinating. She enjoyed the two days of
intense planning and felt that all the discussions were
upbeat and positive regarding the future of our
profession, but that change was inevitable.
top
CEs Still Wrestle With Issues Related To Law
Enforcement‘s Requests for PHI
Click here to read the article. Published in
the January 2009 issue of Report on Patient Privacy.
Reprinted with the permission of Atlantic Information
Services, Inc.
top
News Bites
2009 ICD-10-CM Files Posted to NCHS Web Site
The National Center
for Health Statistics (NCHS) Web site is now updated
with the
2009 version of ICD-10-CM. The updates include
changes to the tabular and the general equivalence
mapping files.
National eHealth
Collaborative Launched
The National
eHealth Collaborative (NeHC), formerly AHIC Successor,
Inc., launched last week in Washington, DC. NeHC is a
public-private partnership dedicated to the creation of
a secure, interoperable, nationwide health information
network that will advance the American public’s interest
in health and improve the quality, safety, efficiency,
and accessibility of healthcare. The Collaborative
builds on the accomplishments of the American Health
Information Community (AHIC), a federal advisory
committee established in 2005, and AHIC Successor, Inc.,
founded in 2008 to transition AHIC’s accomplishments
into a new non-profit membership organization, now known
as the National eHealth Collaborative.
Click here for more details.
top
Meetings and More
Meetings!
Lunch & Learn
THA and THIMA are cosponsoring a series of CPT
webinars.
Click here to register. Registration is being
handled through THA.
AHIMA Hill Day
The Hill Day registration deadline of February 20 is
quickly approaching. Join your HIM colleagues during
this exciting day where you will have the chance to
speak with your legislators about the importance of
HIM. There are many conversations that are needed to
the address the issues surrounding health information,
privacy, work force, and the impact of HIM in the
provision of healthcare across the nation. Don’t miss
your chance to get involved in AHIMA’s 2009
Washington, DC Capitol Hill Day on March 24. Click
here to register for Hill Day before the February
20 deadline.
Chattanooga Area HIMA February Meeting
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
5:00 PM
Parkridge Medical Center
Fowler Classroom
Ginger Morrow, CPC, CPC-H, CHL
2009 CPT Coding Changes/Updates
Ginger is an excellent speaker with a
great deal of knowledge and experience in CPT coding.
