Hartford HealthCare - Farmington, CT
posted about 1 month ago
- Entry Level
Farmington, CT
Religious, Grantmaking, Civic, Professional, and Similar Organizations
About the position
The Clinical Documentation Specialist (CDS) 1 is responsible for extensive record review, and interaction with physicians, HIM coding professionals, nursing staff and other patient care givers to ensure the accurate representation of patient severity of illness and quality of care. The CDS is also responsible for active participation in team meetings and development of clinical documentation guidelines and education of staff on these guidelines on an ongoing basis. CDS 1 may mentor, train or lead other CDS during their orientation period and assist them with Clinical Documentation Integrity (CDI) policies, procedures, standard work, and systems on an ongoing basis.
Responsibilities
- Provides extensive and accurate reviews of medical records within specified timelines.
- Recognizes opportunities for documentation improvement to support severity of illness and quality of care and then formulates clinically credible documentation clarifications/queries.
- Follows up on all cases especially those with clinical documentation clarifications/queries.
- Provides education to providers on responding to queries in the medical record and other CDI topics.
- Meets program quality and productivity guidelines and standards.
- Participates in Coding/CDI meetings and CDI H3W work group.
- Inputs review workflows and accurate data and CDI query impact into Optum and EPIC.
- Collaborates with inpatient coders to determine appropriate Diagnosis Related Groups (MS-DRG, APR-DRGs, etc.) and ICD-10 code assignment for compliance, reimbursement, and quality outcomes.
- Works with Coding and Quality Management teams to appropriately identify and develop compliant queries regarding Hospital Acquired Conditions (HAC) and Patient Safety Indicators (PSI).
- Meets revenue cycle goals, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), quality and productivity standards.
- Assists in training and mentoring new CDS' to become acclimated to new environment, and understanding internal policies, procedures, standard work, and workflows.
- Seeks clarification from physicians, nursing, and other staff in cases where documentation is absent, ambiguous, or contradictory.
- Collaborates with HIM coding staff to resolve discrepancies.
- Abides by The Ethical Standards for Clinical Documentation Improvement (CDI) Professionals as set forth by the American Health Information Management Association.
- Participates in other assignments and special projects as assigned.
Requirements
- Associates Degree or equivalent experience.
- Registered nurse (RN) with recent clinical experience in acute care hospital, Intensive Care Unit (ICU), Cardiac Care Unit (CCU), or strong Med/Surg.
- Certified Coding professional with 1-2 years CDS experience.
- Minimum: RN and/or Certified Coding Specialist (CCS).
- Preferred: Certified Clinical Documentation Specialist (CCDS) certification or Certified Clinical Documentation Professional (CDIP) certification.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills.
Nice-to-haves
- Knowledge of Pathophysiology and Disease Process.
- Working knowledge of clinical information.
- Ability to understand and communicate the impact of CC/MCC's and other variables on the assignment of the various DRG methodologies.
- Solid analytical capabilities.
- Strong organizational skills.
- Strong critical thinking, problem solving and deductive reasoning skills.
- Ability to handle multiple priorities and increasing responsibility.
- Strong ability to listen to and acknowledge ideas and expressions of others attentively.
- Strong ability to converse clearly using appropriate verbal and written communications as well as conveying positive body language.
- Ability to collaborate with others to achieve a common goal through mutual cooperation.
- Ability to influence others for positive and productive outcomes.
Benefits
- Competitive benefits program designed to ensure work/life balance.
