Strategies to Grow ProFee Coder’s Skills, Quality, & Accuracy

Strategies to Grow ProFee Coder’s Skills, Quality, & Accuracy

Growing a ProFee coding department’s accuracy and quality can be a daunting task. This is especially if the healthcare organization doesn’t know where to start. Our team of accomplished HIM and medical coding experts has 20+ years’ experience in the industry and is ready to develop a ProFee Coding Quality Improvement Plan, which includes coder mentoring services, specifically tailored to each organization’s goals. Facilities or healthcare organizations that need help developing their ProFee coder team should contact us today. Check out our education courses and academies specifically tailored to Professional Services coders.

The Challenges Facing ProFee Coding

ProFee coding covers complex specialties, procedures, and evaluation/management patient encounters, so there can be risks when coding these scenarios incorrectly. Complex specialties, such as neurological and spinal procedures, cardiac procedures, orthopedic procedures, and new technological advances, are often the areas that Professional Fee departments struggle with the most.

Let YES HIM Consulting’s team of in-house education experts take care of your team’s ongoing ProFee coder education! With courses on annual coding updates, hot medical topics, and ProFee refresher courses, YES provides everything your team needs on one easy-to-access platform, for one annual subscription fee.

Use These Proven Tips to Improve ProFee Coder’s Skills

To improve ProFee coding accuracy and quality, implement these strategies for immediate results:

List of Steps

1. Conduct random quarterly audits to gather trends and other information affecting ProFee coding quality and accuracy. The insights generated from the audits will help map out the improvement plan’s next steps. Detailed spreadsheets are provided with recommended code changes for each coder/provider and supervisor vetting. Audits can be performed quarterly, annually, or at different, more focused intervals.
2. Develop a custom coding education plan that caters to the trends identified in the audits. This can also provide additional specialized training to the coders who need to improve. The YES coding education program aims to mentor coders toward ProFee coding quality and accuracy. Our training program reviews medical terminology, anatomy and physiology, ICD-10-CM diagnoses, and CPT procedural coding.
3. Set up a question queue for coders to escalate questions. This will be for coders that need a second opinion or to hold charts for additional review. YES establishes a question queue for our clients. Questions or charts that have been flagged for review are usually turned around in 24 to 48 hours. Our clients find that the question queue resource both positively impacts coding quality and drives improvement in productivity.
4. Establish a manual of the organization’s coding policies and standardized guidelines to create a threshold for Pro Fee coding accuracy and quality. If a merger or acquisition is taking place, introducing a ProFee Coding Handbook to outline the transition plan to the new company will ensure coding quality. A coding manual will also list out what coders should and should not query for.
5. If a coder is still struggling with coding accuracy and quality, introduce a coder mentoring program. Coders will be coached one-on-one by real-world coding and auditing experts, and will receive concurrent feedback and individual encounter forms that highlight additional training they need. Our auditors are experts in all specialties.

Further Information

In addition, the Coding Accuracy Improvement Plan Case Study from our YES Team features more in-depth information on how to develop a ProFee coding team’s knowledge. The strategies mentioned in this article helped the coding team followed in the case study increase their MS-DRG accuracy rate by 13% over 24 months.

Our team of accomplished HIM and medical coding experts has 20+ years’ experience in the industry and is ready to develop a Pro Fee Coding Quality Improvement Plan specifically tailored to an organization’s goals. Facilities or healthcare organizations that need help developing their ProFee coder team should contact us today. Check out our education courses and academies specifically tailored to Professional Services coders.