Putting learning ICD-10 off? CMS wants you to take preparation seriously.

While some practices have tucked ICD-10 readiness into the backs of their minds, CMS wants to keep it on the forefront of yours.

Although the ICD-10 utilization deadline isn’t until October 1, 2013, CMS continues to remind practices that preparation now will prevent desperation in 2013. To that end, CMS has introduced a free service that allows you to receive an email notification whenever the information on its ICD-10 page is updated. Therefore, when the agency announces an ICD-10 webinar, transcript, article, or tip sheet, you’ll get a notification via email to check the site for more information.

Most recently, the site posted an executive summary of its April 27 ICD-10 vendor conference, at which vendors told CMS that “they have implementation plans in place for both Version 5010 and ICD-10, and are confident that they can meet the implementation deadlines.” However, vendors did express concern “that there is no testing period for ICD-10 prior to the Oct. 1, 2013 implementation deadline.”

To that end, vendors were eager to hear about what the payers are doing to prepare for ICD-10, because any snags on the MAC side could slow payments to practices.

In addition, vendors noted that medical providers — particularly those in small- to mid-sized practices — aren’t focusing on ICD-10 yet, but the vendors strongly felt that providers should prepare now for the transition, because “if you do not comply, you will not be paid.”

For more information on ICD-10, visit www.cms.gov/ICD10/02b_Latest_News.asp.

Be a medical coding hero: Sign up at Supercoder.com, and join the coding community at the Supercoder.com Facebook Fan Page.

Where in the world is Supercoder Girl? Twitter: @supercodergirl Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/supercodergirl

A smart registration process can prevent claim-submission headaches.

If you’re trying to grow your practice, you’ll need to have a logical, simple form to obtain data from your new patients. Not only is a new patient form valuable for gathering important insurance information, but it can help you find patients who owe your practice money and perform collection activities when the patient is present.

If it’s been a while since your practice updated its new patient registration form or you’re creating one for the first time, follow these expert suggestions to make sure you can find patient billing information quickly and easily:

1. Keep the Form Simple

Ask key questions on the patient information intake form that you require all new patients to fill out. Make sure you have basic demographic information such as:

• The policy name and number
• The insured’s name
• Social Security number
• Dates of coverage
• Secondary-insurance information (Households with more than one income often have more than one insurer. The patient must designate which payer is primary and which is secondary.)
• Guardian or responsible party name
• The name of the person or physician who referred the patient.

It may seem obvious, but if your form does not ask patients for their fax, cell phone number, or e-mail address, you could be missing out on valuable information.

Heads up: Limit questions to patient demographics and insurance information. Usually, the form should not include any questions related to medical conditions; its purpose is insurance and payment-related information and/or general marketing data.

Best practice: How you request this information often determines how willing patients are to complete the form. If your request is firm and professional without being aggressive, chances are you will get your required information. “The more patient-friendly and simple and concise, the better,” says Zia Clarkson, a billing consultant and educator in Long Island, N.Y.

Having patients update their forms every year is crucial, as is keeping records up-to-date in case of an audit.

2. Copying the Insurance Card is a Must

In addition to having the patient fill out the new patient form, be sure to ask for, and make a copy of, his insurance card. “Always make a copy of the patient’s insurance card, front and back,” says Brian Fornataro, a billing professional with Medi-corp in Cranford, N.J. “This contains vital information on where to send the claims correctly the first time, cutting down on denials and obtaining revenue faster,” he says.

Since you’ll make a copy of the insurance card’s front and back, you don’t need to ask the patient to provide that information (policy number, group number, phone numbers, etc.) on a form.

Tip: You should ask for the card upon each and every visit by the patient. Insurance information can change frequently, and the patient may not even be aware of the change. “Some payers have different addresses for different specialty billing,” Fornataro points out.

Hint: Make an enlarged copy of the insurance card on your copier. This makes the small print much easier to read.

3. Get Referring Physician Details

When a new patient arrives because of a referral, be sure you have clear information on the referring physician as well. When the patient arrives, a staff member should be reviewing referral data for accuracy. Be clear, Clarkson says. Ask questions such as, “I see Dr. Jones referred you. Is that Dr. Donna or Dr. John Jones?” Clarkson advises.

4. Move Your Forms Online, Too

Consider offering an online form that your patients can fill out before even coming to your office. “Being able to register with the practice online is a great way to have patients offer demographic information,” Clarkson says.

Patients can fill out the forms in the privacy of their homes, where they have all the necessary information readily available — insurance and Social Security cards, for example.

Secure Web-based forms also reduce patients’ waiting time in your office.

If Web-based applications are not an option for some patients, consider mailing out a paper copy in advance — up to a week or two if possible. The patient “can review it and fill it in at their leisure” and submit or return it to the office ahead of time or bring it to his appointment, Clarkson says.

Pointer: Still not sure your forms are hitting the mark? “Have someone outside the practice look at the forms, and get feedback,” Clarkson says.

5. Make Your Practice’s Information Available

The patient will be more open to sharing data with you if you openly communicate office policies and procedures. You may want to discuss with the patient the following:

• Basic services for the condition and your practice’s fees
• The patient’s financial responsibility for services provided during the initial visit
• An estimate of the costs for a new comprehensive history and physical examination
• How the patient can pay for the initial visit (HMO/PPO copay, cash, check, credit card)
• Future-visit payment policy
• Whether the patient needs financial counseling before the visit.

@ Medical Office Billing & Collections Alert

Be a medical coding hero: Sign up at Supercoder.com, and join the coding community at the Supercoder.com Facebook Fan Page.

Where in the world is Supercoder Girl? Twitter: @supercodergirl Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/supercodergirl

Would you be awestruck if a movie star came into your hospital? Don’t let that cloud your judgment.

Spotted: Young Hollywood starlet known for living life in the fast lane entering your facility. Along with what she’s wearing, you might wonder what she’s in for this time — whiplash from a fender bender? ‘Fatigue’ that’s preventing her from showing up on time to her latest movie set? Keep wondering. If you’re caught looking into a patient’s medical records, then be prepared for severe consequences.

Recently, a hospital employee in California was sentenced to four months in prison for reading medical files that did not pertain to his line of work.

Be a hero. Sign up for Supercoder.com.

Want to find out your own EQ? We’ve got the link to a quick, free test.

If you think the only thing powering your medical coding career is brain smarts, think again.

Turns out that researchers think your ‘emotional intelligence’ is even more crucial to your success and happiness than your ordinary intelligence. That’s why more and more career coaches are paying more attention to your ‘EQ’ rather than your ‘IQ.’ Your ‘EQ’ is the measure of your emotional intelligence.

So what is your ‘emotional intelligence quotient’ exactly? “It’s an array of non-cognitive (things other than intelligence) capabilities, competencies, and skills that influence one’s ability in coping with environmental demands and pressures,” says EQ researcher Reuvan Bar-On, PhD. “It’s how we handle ourselves and others,” explains author Daniel Goleman.

Simply put, EQ is your ability to ‘deal.’ We’ve all known people with very high IQs who inadvertently sabotage their careers and lives with their low EQs.

True story …

Years ago, I worked in a medical transcription and secretarial pool serving several super-smart surgeons at a university medical center. All our doctors had high IQs, but one surgeon had a very low EQ. He was the kind of guy who never held the elevator, often yelled at staff, and wore an obnoxious gold chain with a shark tooth. You know the type.

Somehow calls coming in for this EQ-impaired surgeon were always held last in the queue and his dictations were always at the bottom of the pile. Go figure. Perhaps subconsciously, the gals in the back office always put his work behind surgeons with higher EQs. As a result, his day ran a little less quickly and smoothly than other surgeons, and his notes were last to get into the records. (This was during the bad old paper days.) And, I’m sure countless other things were more difficult for him, simply because of his inability to play well with others.

Most coders I know have high IQs — you have to be smart in order to do the work we do. But, some coders I know create obstacles in their career path because of low EQs. Maybe they haven’t quite figured out how to communicate effectively with clinicians or IT guys. Maybe they don’t have the intuition to hire the right people to work for them. The list goes on and on.

Here’s why an IQ/EQ imbalance is concerning. Researchers estimate that your IQ predicts only 10-20 percent of your success in life. The rest of your success depends on your EQ.

Good news: Your IQ is pretty much ’set’ by the time you hit your mid-teens. There’s nothing much you can do to improve it. In contrast, your EQ is NOT fixed. You can develop it at any time in your life, even if you are not born with it.

4 Ways You Can Build Your EQ

1. Take this free EQ test here. It takes about 30 minutes, and it’s pretty fun. You can get a summary of the results for free or pay $2.95 for a complete report.

2. Read How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnagie. This book is pretty old, but it’s a classic. I’ve never read it, but so many professionals I admire recommend it that I’m going to check it out today and summarize the main points for you here.

3. Check out Emotional Intelligence: Why it can Matter More than IQ by Daniel Coleman.

4. Read Quick Emotional Intelligence Activities for Busy Managers by Adele Lynn.

A high EQ’s no good to your medical coding career if you don’t have your CPC. Find out more here.

Sure, e-mail is a common form of professional communication these days, but do you use the medium well?

Find out by asking yourself these questions:

“How do I greet and close my messages?” You should always use a greeting in your professional e-mails, according to Dr. Julie Miller’s article, “E-Mail Protocol.” Some companies even have their own standard openings and closings for work e-mails, she says.

“What does my e-mail signature say about my organization?” Use a professional font like Times New Roman, and be sure to include all of your contact information.

You might also consider putting your signature block horizontal rather than vertical due to your limited space, she suggests.

“What is the company policy for blind copies?” Your company might strictly forbid using the “Bcc” option, so be sure you know the rules before you use this feature. “Some computer programs allow all those who you do not want to see your e-mail to view it if the recipient hits ‘reply all,’” Miller warns.

“Do I have a message for the out of office auto-responder, and when do I turn it on?” Informing your message senders that you are unable to respond to their messages is polite, whether you’re on vacation or in the middle of a long meeting during the day.

“How often do I check e-mails?” You can stay productive during the day by checking your e-mails only every hour or so. Just make sure that you check them regularly. You don’t want to miss an important announcement.

“How soon do I return e-mails?” Some companies’ policy state all e-mails need answering with the same business day,” Miller says.

“Do I use emoticons?” Omit these cutesy additions from your professional e-mails, Miller advises. Remember, your e-mail is part of your professional image. What kind of impression do you want to leave with your customers and coworkers?

“How many e-mails do I send before I pick up the phone?” If you can’t explain yourself in three e-mails or fewer, it’s time for you to pick up the phone or walk over to your colleague’s desk, says Miller.

“What is my company’s policy on writing business letters, accessing confidential information and handling racial or sexual harassment?” Tailor your e-mail usage according to these policies.

Feel like you need more on-the-job email tips? Go to this related post in My Coding Career.

© Teamwork.

And don’t make this career-limiting move.

You may interact with your clinicians and back office colleagues in person, but they also get to know you — and judge your performance — over less immediate interactions like email, project management software, and EMR messaging systems.

I’ve made some career-busting mistakes over email, so I wish I could have read about these email no-no’s from Robert Half International much earlier in my work life. Are you driving your bosses and colleagues crazy with email habits like these?

1. You constantly mark emails as priority. You might use the priority flag to ensure that your teammates read your emails faster. But the truth is if it isn’t a true priority, your colleagues are just going to get annoyed. As you keep unnecessarily flagging messages, eventually your teammates won’t believe that any of the messages you send are of importance. Like the boy who cried wolf, your colleagues will begin to ignore your truly important messages.

2. Your messages are so looooong. Think of when you go to a meeting: It’s hard to remember everything the presenter says when it’s a really long presentation, right? The same goes for your email. If you overload your doctors with long emails and too much information, you’re making your emails impossible to answer.

Tip: Writing a physician query over email or your EMR system? Stay brief and on point.

If you’ve got a lot of information to cover, skip the long email and schedule a face-to-face meeting.

3. You always hit “Reply All.” This can be distracting for your colleagues, because you’re probably carrying a conversation with only one or two people, but you’re including everyone else in the discussion. As a result, your teammates are bombarded with lots of email that they didn’t even need to see. Before you hit reply all, think of whom you’re really replying to and who doesn’t really need to see your message.

4. You send huge attachments. Beware of large PowerPoint presentations or Excel spreadsheets, multimedia files and so on. Sometimes these files are too large for you to send via email, and you’ll end up clogging your teammates’ inboxes.

Transmit files that are only 1MB or less, suggests Robert Half International. If you do have a large file that you need to send to your teammates,  burn it onto a CD and distribute it to your teammates or direct your teammates to the file’s place on your server.

And one tip straight from My Coding Career: Remember that any email you send can be forwarded to someone else. I learned this lesson the hard way when I was young and foolish — even more foolish than I arguably still am now.

Don’t-Try-This-At-Home Cautionary Tale: I had a teammate who was a real jerk. But he was so slick, few realized he was a jerk — at least at first. One day, one of Mr. Slick’s emails ticked me off. I was busy and tired, and I fired off a snarky response.

Mr. Slick forwarded my email to the guy who was boss to us both. Since my boss didn’t see the whole exchange and hadn’t yet seen Mr. Slick’s true colors, I was the one who looked like an immature hothead. Because … I was.

Lesson learned: Don’t send any email anywhere unless you’d be comfortable with any colleague or boss seeing it. Save ‘fierce conversations’ for face to face.

Adapted from Teamwork.

Steer clear of PowerPoint poison with these tips.

For many, the invention of PowerPoint was a gift from the presenter gods. But watch out, because if you don’t use PowerPoint properly, you could be setting yourself up for a presentation disaster, says Doug Carter in his article, “How PowerPoint Presentations Can Poison Your Message And Three Simple Solutions.”

When you’re teaching medical coding to physicians and other clinicians, there’s a lot of information to get across. And certainly, PowerPoint slides can help learners absorb what you’re teaching them during the presentation. And, sending them slides after the presentation provides them with a handy reference tool. But PowerPoint’s capacity to get your point across depends on how you use it.

Make these three rules the mantra of your PowerPoint presentations, and you’ll be able to teach coding to clinicians effectively:

Rule #1 — You should be the center of attention, not the PowerPoint slides, says Carter. Your audience will respond to your message when they connect with you, rather than staring at slides and reading information.

This especially important for medical coding presentations, where the information can seem like a lot of impersonal details and ‘red tape.’ If clinicians personally trust you as someone who’s working to get the practice the reimbursement they deserve, they’ll be more likely to cooperate. Do this …

Make yourself the focal point by dressing professionally and looking your very best. Engage your audience by encouraging them to participate and asking audience members some questions.

Another trick is to write down your answers to an audience member’s question on the white board or clipboard in the front of the room, says Carter. This makes the audience feel like their ideas are important, and encourages the clinician-coder interaction that leads to better documentation habits. Once they understand they can contribute to your efforts to secure reimbursement for what they do, they’ll end up paying more attention.

Rule #2 — Make sure your visuals convey your message better than you can, says Carter. Often, visuals can be more powerful at showing relationships and explaining the “big picture” of your ideas that you can’t tell your audience in words.

Rule #3 — Your audience should understand your visual within 10 seconds or less, says Carter. If you can’t understand the visual within 10 seconds, drop it from the slide. If it’s too complicated, you will confuse your audience and lose their attention, as they will stop listening to you and try to decipher your visual instead.

What that means for coder presenters: Break up information into small, digestible chunks or simple flow charts or checklists.

© Adapted from Successful Supervisor.

Use these techniques to take control and become more productive at your medical coding job.

You’re not a superhero, and yet you feel like you have to move faster than a speeding bullet to keep up with the competing priorities at your medical coding or billing job. Are you overworked or simply overwhelmed?

Before you can act on your problems, you need to actually distinguish between the two, says Jeff Davidson, who spoke at a recent audioconference entitled “Overworked or Overwhelmed: Stress Strategies for Healthcare.”

“We can pretty much handle the ‘overwork’ as long as it’s not every single day,” Davidson says. “We can handle bouts of overwork when it happens, as long as periodically, we have some breaks.”

Being overwhelmed, on the other hand, is worse because it hampers our ability to be productive.  When ‘overwhelm’ strikes, it doesn’t matter how your work load happens to be in a daily basis, Davidson warns. “Overwhelm, in of itself, will render the whole situation as unmanageable.”

When you are merely overwhelmed rather than overworked, chances are it is by your own doing. That means that you can suss out the real cause of your panic and tackle it head on. Take note of these 3 traps that lure you into ‘overwhelm’ mode and get Davidson’s tips for how to get out of ‘overwhelm’ and back into productivity mode.

Trap 1: You face too many priorities.

You will quickly find yourself in an overwhelm situation when you try to juggle with too many priorities. Priorities are the key, driving, fundamental elements of your life (for example, family, career, job, community, and faith). How do you know if you have too many? It may differ on each individual, but “Certainly 19 or 11 is too many. When you have too many priorities, then all of a sudden life will seem to be more complex,” says Davidson.

In the workplace, having too many items of importance invites complexity and sets you on the path to ‘overwhem.’ To avoid this, Davidson advises you to pinpoint a handful of things that are truly important, then set some limits. How do you pinpoint these things? Here are some ideas.

•    Ask your boss what your personal ‘make or break’ goals should be. What do you need to do in your medical coding job to optimally contribute to your health care organization’s profitability and compliance? What are your most important tasks from your boss’s perspective?
•    Create a priority card, which lists the key things that are important to accomplish. “Pull it out when it seems as if things are tugging for your attention in 6 or 7 different directions. Read that card. Get focus. And the complexity will fall away,” Davidson says.

Trap 2: You cause your own stress.

Ask yourself what you’ve done to pull yourself in so many directions and learn to focus. When you face an enormous amount of stress on your work, the safe solution is to go where you won’t be disturbed — anywhere where you can focus, according to Davidson.

This is especially important every time you’re doing some first-time conceptual thinking, like spotting a troublesome billing pattern from audit results. You’re better off doing that in some place quiet where you know you won’t be disturbed.

Trap 3: You let small things dictate your priorities

Too often, we let email run the way we proceed throughout the day, but it’s more efficient to focus on another task that you’ve not been able to master or finish, rather than being tempted to check in with your mailbox hour after hour throughout the day.

Remember: You’re in charge, not your gadgets.

Davidson summarizes the reasons why some people continue to find themselves in a “piled-up” situation all the time. How many apply to you?
•    priorities not well established;
•    procrastination;
•    disorganization;
•    unclear objectives;
•    unproductive meetings;
•    poor listening;
•    unrealistic time frames; and
•    negative attitude.

Coming soon. Tips to help you tame the email storm.

Compelling evidence that the

If I’m to believe some of the women’s magazines I read, the highest performers at work are skilled ‘multi-taskers.’ So I’ve always wanted to be one of those multitaskers who can do big projects, answer emails on my Crackberry, and do in-my-chair abdominal exercises all at the same time. But alas, I’ve never been able to pull that off. Well, it’s a happy day because it turns out the one-at-a-time approach to tasks actually makes me more productive.

Stop, look and focus, urged efficiency expert Jeff Davidson, who spoke recently in the audio conference titled “Overworked or Overwhelmed? Stress Strategies for Healthcare Professionals.” His advice makes a lot of sense, especially for jobs like medical coding and billing, which require utmost concentration. “Go where you won’t be disturbed—anywhere where you can focus,” says Davidson. Next, tips to help you focus …

Remember, you can only give your sharp attention in one direction at a time, as many scientific studies show. An article published in the Daily Mail states that multitasking might actually be bad for your brain. The claim is based on a research conducted by Professor Earl Miller, a neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). “Scientists are discovering that today’s mania for cramming everything in at once is creating a perilous cocktail of brain problems, from severe stress and rage in adults to learning problems and autism-like behavior in children,” the article reports.

And contrary to popular beliefs, multitasking often makes you less efficient. When people try to do complex things all at the same time, their brains “switch frantically between tasks like bad amateur plate spinners,” the article adds. Simply put, the human brain is more at ease performing tasks one after the other, rather than all at once.

iPhone Alert: Gadgets like iPhones, Blackberries, laptops, and iPads can actually diminish productivity, according to this CNNhealth.com story. “The multitaskers tend to retain the distracting information in their short-term memory, which affects their ability to focus, compared with people who don’t check their e-mail while talking on the phone and sneaking in some online shopping,” the article discloses.

Try this tip: Set your phone or email program so that you don’t get a buzz or a flash every time something new comes in. Schedule regular times during the day to check email so that you don’t take away time from big projects that you’re accountable for.

If you want the fastest way of getting things done, you should practice the art of performing one activity at a time, Davidson insists. For instance, if there are five things vying for your attention, take what you think is important, complete it and move on to the next task until you’ve accomplished all that you need to do. “Nothing will take you faster than focusing on one task at a time,” he maintains.

Get more of Jeff Davidson’s tips for handling information and communication overload at work.

This quick, 3-question quiz says for sure.

Downtime is a welcome part of any workday, and it can happen even for a medical coder tasked with a quota of claims to complete. But if you’re finding yourself strapped for time at the end of the day, perhaps you spent too much time lollygagging at the coffee maker or walking around the office talking to your colleagues.

To put more time on the clock, you can take a few moments of your downtime each day to get a little bit ahead on your work. Not only will you feel relaxed about your workload because you’re making progress, but your boss will notice too.

Take this quick quiz to see if you’re making the most of your downtime.

1. True or false: I catch up on my filing if I have 5 extra minutes during the day.

2. True or false: I start a project even if it’s at the end of the day and I don’t have long to work on it.

3. True or false: When I’m waiting for a resource that I need to complete my next big project, I go through my email that has piled up and delete what I no longer need.

Are you productive during your downtime? Click here to see results …

1. TRUE. The best way to whittle away at that pile is to do it in little bits at a time. This breaks up the tedium so that before you know it, your filing is finished!

2. TRUE. This may seem counterproductive because you may feel that you don’t have time to get into your project. The opposite is actually true. If you spend a few minutes getting the preliminary work out of the way, you can dive right in when you get to the office in the morning.

3. TRUE. Deleting email that you no longer need serves two purposes. One is that you free up space on your company server, meaning your system can perform faster. The other is you can find what you need more quickly because you don’t have so much email to sift through.

© Teamwork.

One place you definitely won’t waste any time: A 3-day CPC exam prep training camp.