Ingenix has released its annual report on the top coding hospitals, ranking them based on how accurate and complete their coding practices are when billing Medicare. The report shines a spotlight on hospitals that have done the best job transitioning to CMS's latest policies, including new Medicare payment methods and lower payments for hospital-acquired conditions.
The company says that hospitals that ranked highly have adjusted most quickly to new Medicare billing practices, and have learned to avoid the billing patterns that Medicare's Recovery Audit Contractor program is looking for. For example, many hospitals with smart coding strategies are learning to avoid severity-adjusted grouping.
In addition to evaluating coding strategies, Ingenix researchers used 13 metrics drawn from the DRG and ICD-9-CM systems that correlate strongly with accurate coding.
To learn more about the results:
- read this Healthcare Finance News piece