Talk Ten Tuesdays

Latest Episodes:

The Coding World in 2020: Look Ahead to ICD-10-CM Clinical Coding Challenges Jan 14, 2020

Show notes

The coding world in 2020 will be a new landscape of challenges for coders as well as health information management (HIM) professionals. And to help you and your team prepare for what lies ahead in the New Year, Gloryanne Bryant, a well-known, national coding and HIM leader, returns to the Talk Ten Tuesdays broadcast with her report on six major issues confronting coders this year and beyond.
The podcast will also feature these other segments:

Tuesday Focus: Nationally recognized professional physician coder and auditor Terry Fletcher, a member of the ICD10monitor editorial board, reports how why “incident-to billing” is under siege – and could go the way of Google Glass.
The Coding Report: Laurie Johnson reports on the latest coding news that has been making headlines. Johnson is a nationally recognized coding authority and senior healthcare consultant at Revenue Cycle Solutions, LLC.
Mental Health and Climate Change: Nationally renowned psychiatrist and author H. Steven Moffic, MD, reports on an exclusive series on the impact of climate change on healthcare.
News Desk: Timothy Powell, compliance expert and ICD10monitor national correspondent, anchors the Talk Ten Tuesdays News Desk.
TalkBack: Erica Remer, MD, founder and president of Erica Remer, MD, Inc. and Talk Ten Tuesdays co-host, reports on the question 'Is Recording the Patient Encounter for Posterity a Good Idea?'.

In the Holiday Spirit of Giving: Free Advice to Avoid Claim Denials Dec 10, 2019

Show notes

In the true holiday spirit of giving, during this edition of Talk Ten Tuesdays weekly broadcast will provide you and your team with some free advice on how to avoid claim denials – especially if you don’t have a robust claim denials management process.
Unfortunately, the majority of healthcare organizations encounter claim denials on a regular basis, often habitually. Though some claim denials may be unavoidable, ineffective claim denials management can result in even more lost revenue, as you’ll learn when Susan Gatehouse, founder and CEO of Axea Solutions, returns to the broadcast.
The live broadcast will also feature these other segments:

The Coding Report: Laurie Johnson reports on the latest coding news that has been making headlines. Johnson is a nationally recognized coding authority and senior healthcare consultant at Revenue Cycle Solutions, LLC.
Tuesday Focus: Mental Health: During this holiday season, you and others are likely looking forward to festivities with coworkers, friends, family, and extended family. But for others, this time of the year can trigger, or in some cases, acerbate, stress, anxiety, and depression. That is why we asked nationally prominent psychiatrist and author H. Steven Moffic to provide a prescription to relieve the holiday malaise some of you might be experiencing.
News Desk: Timothy Powell, compliance expert and ICD10monitor national correspondent, anchor the Talk Ten Tuesdays News Desk.
RegWatch: Stanley Nachimson, former Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) career professional-turned-well-known healthcare IT authority, reports on the latest regulatory news coming out of Washington, D.C.
TalkBack: Erica Remer, MD, founder and president of Erica Remer, MD, Inc. and Talk Ten Tuesdays co-host, reports on another thought-provoking topic that has captured her attention.

Beyond CCs and MCCs: Say Hello to HCCs and APR-DRGs Dec 03, 2019

Show notes

There was a time when the coin of the realm in the world of coding was knowledge of complications or comorbidities (CCs) and major complications or comorbidities (MCCs).
But 10 years later, the industry has changed rapidly, and to avoid going the way of the dinosaur, coders today need to embrace all patients’ refined diagnosis-related groups (APR-DRGs) and hierarchical condition categories (HCCs). A coder’s staying power lies beyond MS-DRGs, according to Kristi Pollard, who reports our lead story during this edition of Talk Ten Tuesdays.
The live broadcast will also feature these other segments:

The Coding Report: Laurie Johnson reports on the latest coding news that has been making headlines. Johnson is a nationally recognized coding authority and senior healthcare consultant at Revenue Cycle Solutions, LLC.
Tuesday Focus: A recent meta-analysis of studies published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on the effects of nutritional support on clinical outcomes is a trending topic in healthcare’s social media universe. We will have two reports on this topic: Molly Hegarty, founder and CEO of Junum, reports on possible revenue loss when the presence of a malnutrition diagnosis is not documented appropriately, and Dr. McClain Blanton, a physician advisor with the Brundage Group, reports on the clinical aspects of the study.
News Desk: Timothy Powell, compliance expert and ICD10monitor national correspondent, anchors the Talk Ten Tuesdays News Desk.
TalkBack: Erica Remer, MD, founder and president of Erica Remer, MD, Inc. and Talk Ten Tuesdays co-host, reports on another thought-provoking topic that has captured her attention.

Ten Going on Eleven: Help is Here Nov 26, 2019

Show notes

As we conclude our month-long Talk Ten Tuesdays series, “Ten Going on Eleven,” we do so with a special appearance by Valerie Watzlaf, board president and chair of the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA).
Valerie, vice chair of education and associate professor within the Department of Health Information Management in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh, will discuss how AHIMA is helping the health information management (HIM) profession prepare for the implementation of ICD-11.
The live broadcast will also feature these other segments:

The Coding Report: Ten Going on Eleven: Laurie Johnson will report on the need to be conversant with the new code changes, especially if there is no physical coding book. Johnson is a nationally recognized coding authority and senior healthcare consultant at Revenue Cycle Solutions, LLC.
Ten Going on Eleven: George Vancore, a system consultant for Florida Blue (Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida), will report on ICD-11 implementation from the perspective of health plans.
CDI Report: Lamon Willis, director of coding for Velocity Healthcare Collaborative, will explain valid reasons for not necessarily believing DRG denials by auditors. In particular, he will report on the apparent conundrum between Sepsis-1, Sepsis-2, and Sepsis-3 – and how payers are trying to utilize what they perceive as a loophole regarding the variance between coding and clinical documentation.
News Desk: Timothy Powell, compliance expert, and ICD10monitor national correspondent will anchor the Talk Ten Tuesdays News Desk.
TalkBack: Erica Remer, MD, FACEP, CCDS, founder and president of Erica Remer, MD, Inc. and Talk Ten Tuesdays co-host, will report on another thought-provoking topic that has captured her attention.

All this and more will be coming your way during the next live edition of Talk Ten Tuesdays, Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2019 at 10 a.m. EST.

Ten Going on Eleven: The Role of HCC Coding Nov 19, 2019

Show notes

Exclusive reporting on ICD-11 and the need for early preparation for the new code set continues at ICD10monitor and Talk Ten Tuesdays.
Among those skills that will need to be honed is hierarchical classification category (HCC) coding. HCCs thrive on specificity. Although it was thought that ICD-10 delivered the ultimate level of specificity, ICD-11 is expected to surpass ICD-10 in that area. But HCCs require documentation, and the key looming question remains, at this time, unanswered: will the documentation rise to meet the specificity level needed under ICD-11?
Nationally recognized health information management (HIM) expert and past American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) President Rose Dunn, the chief operating officer for First Class Solutions, will explore that issue during the next edition of Talk Ten Tuesdays.
The live broadcast will also feature these other segments:

Mental Health Report: Although the industry hasn’t turned the corner on reducing mental healthcare burnout, a nationally prominent psychiatrist and author H. Steven Moffic suggests a fresh new approach in the deploying “edge leaders.”
RegWatch: Stanley Nachimson, former CMS career professional turned well-known healthcare IT authority, returns to the broadcast to continue his reporting on regulatory news coming from Washington, D.C.
The Coding Report: Cari Underwood reports on significant changes in Chapter 12 Diseases of the Skin and Subcutaneous Tissue, including new codes for reporting diagnoses of deep tissue damage and a new guideline directing the assignment of these codes.
News Desk: Timothy Powell, compliance expert, and ICD10monitor national correspondent anchors the Talk Ten Tuesdays News Desk and reports on the Google compliance cloud.
TalkBack: Erica Remer, MD, FACEP, CCDS, founder and president of Erica Remer, MD, Inc. and Talk Ten Tuesdays co-host, reports on a few thought-provoking topics that have captured her attention.

Ten Going on Eleven: Data Mining: A Must-Have Skill for Coders Nov 12, 2019

Show notes

Data mining is the next frontier in healthcare – and it’s here.
The creation of revenue management and data management educational tracks in health information technology (HIT) associate degree programs, plus the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to assign ICD-11 codes, means that data mining skills are a must-have for coding specialists, requiring extensive education.
To help assist this major educational initiative, ICD10monitor and Talk Ten Tuesdays are producing a series of articles and broadcast segments on medical coding data mining. Published by ICD10monitor, in association with the author, educator, and consultant Lolita Jones, this exclusive series will tackle the topic of data mining in an easy-to-understand format that will also include real-life medical coding data mining examples.
The goal is simple. We want coding specialists to embrace data mining, so they can excel in their new roles as coding validators when ICD-11 is implemented. Launching this new series during this edition of Talk Ten Tuesdays will be the aforementioned Ms. Jones, who is also a member of the ICD10monitor editorial board.
The live broadcast will also feature these other segments:

Tuesday Focus: Debridement: Medicare’s definition of debridement is “the removal of foreign material and/or devitalized or contaminated tissue from or adjacent to a traumatic or infected wound until surrounding healthy tissue is exposed.” Nationally recognized professional physician coder and auditor Terry Fletcher, a member of the ICD10monitor editorial board, reports documentation essentials and coding errors for which to be alert.
RegWatch: Stanley Nachimson, former Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) career professional-turned-well-known healthcare IT authority, reports on the latest regulatory news coming out of Washington, D.C.
Ten Going on Eleven: The Coding Report: Laurie Johnson reports on the need to be conversant with ICD-11, especially if there is no physical coding book. Johnson is a nationally recognized coding authority and senior healthcare consultant at Revenue Cycle Solutions, LLC.
News Desk: Timothy Powell, compliance expert, and ICD10monitor national correspondent anchors the Talk Ten Tuesdays News Desk.
TalkBack: Erica Remer, MD, FACEP, CCDS, founder and president of Erica Remer, MD, Inc. and Talk Ten Tuesdays co-host, reports on another thought-provoking topic that has captured her attention.

Ten Going on Eleven: The Train Has Left the Station Nov 05, 2019

Show notes

ICD-11 is on track to arrive here in the U.S. sooner than most expected – 2022. In fact, global experts convened in Switzerland to create a roadmap to advance the digital health ecosystem.
For the very latest update on ICD-11, the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) Robert Jakob, MD, team leader of classifications and terminologies (ICD, ICF, ICHI), is today's Talk Ten Tuesdays special guest. Also joining the broadcast is Margaret Skurka, who has just returned from the WHO Family of International Classifications (WHO-FIC) meeting in Banff, Calgary, Canada, and discusses the latest on ICD-11 from both the U.S. perspective and a global perspective.
Skurka is past president of the International Federation of Health Information Management Associations, IFHIMA, and serves as the current IFHIMA/AHIMA representative to the WHO Family of International Classifications Education and Implementation Committee. That committee does work on ICD-11, as well as on improving the quality of coded data internationally, while recognizing coders around the world.
The live broadcast will also feature these other segments:

The CDI Report: Ten Going on Eleven: ICD-11 includes many new conditions that are not currently included in ICD-10. It’s never too early to start analyzing your facility’s current documentation to ensure it will meet the standard needed for ICD-11. Reporting on the clinical documentation integrity (CDI) implications of ICD-11 is Melanie Endicott, the vice president of health information management (HIM) excellence for the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA).
The Coding Report: Ten Going on Eleven: Laurie Johnson reports on the need to be conversant with the new code changes, especially if there is no physical coding book. Johnson is a nationally recognized coding authority and senior healthcare consultant at Revenue Cycle Solutions, LLC.
News Desk: Timothy Powell, compliance expert and ICD10monitor national correspondent, anchors the Talk Ten Tuesdays News Desk.
TalkBack: Erica Remer, MD, FACEP, CCDS, founder and president of Erica Remer, MD, Inc. and Talk Ten Tuesdays co-host, reports on another thought-provoking topic that has captured her attention.

Reasons Not to Believe DRG Denials Oct 29, 2019

Show notes

“In the hospital setting, we see multiple insurance denials on a weekly basis,” Lamon Willis recently wrote in an article for ICD10monitor.
“Teams of people route them to various departments for analysis and review. I have staff members who review the APC and/or DRG, along with coding criteria, to determine if we have properly fulfilled our duties as coders and to support the appeals process for the organization,” he continued. “My staff and I agree on one thing at the very beginning, and that is: don’t believe the denial.”
During this edition of Talk Ten Tuesdays, Willis, director of coding for Velocity Healthcare Collaborative, explains valid reasons for not necessarily believing in DRG denials by auditors.
The live broadcast will also feature these other segments:

The Coding Report: Laurie Johnson, a senior healthcare consultant at Revenue Cycle Solutions, LLC, continues her exclusive reporting on the coding of e-cigarette lung injuries (vaping).
Tuesday Focus: Nationally recognized professional physician coder and auditor Terry Fletcher, a member of the ICD10monitor editorial board, reports how physicians and providers could have their Medicare enrollment revoked if they are affiliated with an organization directly or indirectly that has any history of "bad acts" with the program.
Five Looking at Ten: Deborah Grider, author, educator, and senior healthcare consultant for Karen Zupko and Associates, returns to the broadcast to report on coding lessons learned in ICD-10.
Five Looking at Ten: The WEDI Role: Stanley Nachimson reports on the role played by the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI) in the run-up to ICD-10. Nachimson led the WEDI ICD-10 Implementation Timeline Initiative and co-chaired the ICD-10 Testing workgroup.
News Desk: Timothy Powell, compliance expert, and ICD10monitor national correspondent, anchors the Talk Ten Tuesdays News Desk.

Five Looking at Ten: Lessons Learned Oct 22, 2019

Show notes

Five Looking at Ten, the month-long series on ICD10monitor and Talk Ten Tuesdays that examines lessons learned since the nation’s healthcare system adopted ICD-10, will continue with a special guest appearance of Robert Tennant of the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA).
The broadcast also feature these other segments:

Five Looking at Ten: Clinical Audits: Nationally recognized health information management (HIM) authority Gloryanne Bryant reports on lessons learned from clinical coding audits and selecting a coding vendor.
Five Looking at Ten: The Coding Report: Laurie Johnson, senior healthcare consultant at Revenue Cycle Solutions, LLC, reports on lessons learned as the nation prepares for the transition from ICD-10 to ICD-11, as well as the prerequisite training.
Revenue Cycle Report: Tim Bavosi, vice president of consulting for RevSpring, reports on the root causes linked to claim denials.
News Desk: Timothy Powell, compliance expert and ICD10monitor national correspondent, will anchor the Talk Ten Tuesdays News Desk.
TalkBack: Erica Remer, MD, FACEP, CCDS, founder and president of Erica Remer, MD, Inc. and Talk Ten Tuesdays co-host, continues her reporting on the recent CMS informational session on CCs and MCCs.

Do EHRs Contribute to Patient Deaths? Oct 15, 2019

Show notes

There is ongoing concern that electronic health record (EHR) systems are one of the top contributing causes to patient deaths, complications, and erroneous care plans. During this edition of Talk Ten Tuesdays, nationally recognized professional physician coder and auditor Terry Fletcher, a member of the ICD10monitor editorial board, reports on the growing issue of EHR-related errors.
The live broadcast will also feature these other segments:

The Coding Report: Laurie Johnson, senior healthcare consultant at Revenue Cycle Solutions, LLC, reports on coding for influenza since flu season officially started Oct. 1.
Tuesday Focus: Mortality versus Morbidity: The terms “mortality” and “morbidity,” along with “severity of illness (SOI),” are often interwoven. That’s wrong, as you’ll learn when Susan Gatehouse, CEO of Axea Solution, returns to the broadcast.
Five Looking at Ten: Out of the Blue (Early Payer Adoption): Join us for this month-long series on ICD10monitor and Talk Ten Tuesdays as we examine what lessons have been learned since the nation’s healthcare system adopted ICD-10 on Oct. 1, 2015. This Tuesday, George Vancore, system consultant for Florida Blue (Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida) reports on the challenges during the run-up of ICD-10 of achieving end-to-end testing, from the physician’s desktop to the health plan and back.
News Desk: Timothy Powell, compliance expert, and ICD10monitor national correspondent anchors the Talk Ten Tuesdays News Desk.
TalkBack: Erica Remer, MD, FACEP, CCDS, founder and president of Erica Remer, MD, Inc. and Talk Ten Tuesdays co-host, reports on an important topic that recently captured her attention. Download handout from this segment

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected