Category: Risk Adjustment

Why is HCC coding training important? Without proper coding, it is impossible to diagnose accurately, treat effectively, document those diagnoses, or achieve revenue goals. Coding training will help you master the skills you need to properly code patient records, so investing in HCC coding training might be the right move for you! Read on to learn more about HCC coding training!

 

What is HCC coding?

Hierarchical condition category (HCC) coding was created to estimate future health care costs for patients. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) HCC model was established in 2004 and is increasingly being used as value-based care gains traction. The HCC model relies on ICD-10-CM coding to assign patients risk scores based on their medical condition. Each condition is associated with an ICD-10-CM code. For example, a patient with few serious health problems is likely to have average health care costs for a specific period of time. Patients with many chronic conditions, however, are more likely to have higher health care utilization and costs.

 

Why is HCC coding training so important?

As we mentioned above, proper healthcare coding is important for a number of reasons. However, even the best healthcare providers cannot properly code without the right training. If you are new to the healthcare industry, you will need training to learn the coding system and understand the complexities of accurate diagnosis and documentation. If you have been in the industry for a few years but have not kept up with the latest coding trends, you may also need training to refresh your skills. Whatever your situation, it is important to take the time to invest in HCC coding training. This training will help you master the terminology and coding systems that are used in the healthcare industry. It will also help you learn how to properly diagnose and document for better patient care.

 

Which platforms and tools are effective?

HCC coding training can be delivered in a variety of ways. Depending on which courses you decide to take, you may be able to access them online or on your mobile device. Most HCC coding training courses will include videos, interactive activities, and practice tests. These tools can make learning easier and more effective. They can also help you retain the information you learn effectively. If you are looking for HCC coding training, it is important to find a platform or a course that fits your learning style and skill level. If you are new to the industry, you may want to take a beginner’s course. If you have been in the industry for a few years and just want to refresh your skills, you might want to take an intermediate or advanced course.

 

3 Things to include in your training plan

When you are ready to start your HCC coding training, it is important to make sure you have a plan in place. This will help you stay motivated and on track and make sure you finish before the course’s deadline. There are a few things you should definitely include in your plan.

 

Set specific goals

Before you begin coding training, you should sit down and set some specific goals for your course. What do you hope to achieve by the end of your training? By setting specific goals, you will know what you are working towards and have something to motivate you. 

Set a schedule

It is important to set a schedule and stick to it. This will help you stay motivated and make sure you do not get overwhelmed by the coursework. Make sure you allot enough time for studying each week and do not try to cram. A healthy pace is achievable at 5 minutes per week, if you have the right tools. 

Stay focused

Finally, during your coding training, it is important to keep your eye on the prize. While coding is interesting and can be complex, you do not want to get so involved that you lose sight of your goal. Stick to your schedule, do not try to push yourself too hard and you will be on track to finish in time.

 

Get Started Today

Doctus Tech is the best way for clinicians like yourself to start learning to diagnose with HCC codes. Benchmark yourself with other clinicians, identify your team’s knowledge gaps and benefit from a 30% increase in RAF accuracy. Sign up for a 14-day trial now!

RaDonda Vaught was just sentenced to three years of supervised probation. The former Vanderbilt University Medical Center nurse was found guilty of negligent homicide and gross neglect of an impaired adult in the death of a patient, because she administered vecuronium rather than Versed.

 

A tired, overworked nurse could not find the prescribed medication in an automatic drug dispensing cabinet, so she used an override and grabbed the wrong drug. Her patient died, and she was convicted of two felonies.

 

Burnout is a pervasive evil in any industry. But in healthcare, the stakes are measured in lives, and a career-ending error could also land a well-meaning provider in court, battling more than a malpractice suit. 

 

The Rise and Fall and Rise of Physician Burnout

A study from 2019 demonstrated a decline in physician burnout [Source]. Good timing, as the burnout decline preceded an overall healthcare worker burnout event rivaling the black plague at a drag strip. Just one year after publication, COVID-19 ushered in the worst, longest, darkest season of overwork, stress and burnout the healthcare industry has seen in a century. 

 

And with the industry marching predictably toward Value-Based Care, onboarding a new clinician comes with a massive learning curve. Requiring providers to add HCC coding to their already complex workflow is not only vital to improve the industry, it is increasingly mandated by CMS.

 

Add to it that none of this HCC coding was taught in medical school, and you have a perfect storm that even Clooney & Wahlberg would struggle to make sexy. 

 

Why do they make it so hard?

The rising tide of burnout and the steady growth of VBC and HCC coding knowledge form enough of a riptide of impossibility for today’s practitioners. But the teaching methods being used to bludgeon new codes into the weary minds—and workflows—of new residents and established docs alike are downright cruel. Consider that HCC coding education is  being deployed using some of the most arcane and ineffective teaching tools available today. 

 

1 hour seminars are the lingua franca across nearly every provider group in a risk payment model. And if sitting in a classroom being talked at while pretending not to stare blankly at your phone was not bad enough, the two worst years in most providers’ careers were met by shifting those interminable seminars to a Zoom call, probably on your phone.

 

Consider the vital role that HCC coding plays in capturing critical diagnoses to be treated, documenting those diagnoses to keep them treated, and billing against Risk Adjustment scores to reimburse for essential healthcare services that keep patients out of the hospital. 

 

And we are teaching these skills over a Zoom call? With providers more burnt-out than ever, and Zoom fatigue at a universal high – we are lecturing doctors on HCC coding over their phones? Is it a surprise that engagement is low? Is it a surprise that errors are high? Or that adoption of full risk models is sluggish at best? 

 

And yes, one-to-one coaching is the gold standard, and those who provide this mission-critical service should be heralded in the streets and welcomed with ticker-tape parades. This is heroic work. But with global workforce shortages, there are definitely not enough coaches to tackle the task at hand. Not for all the clinicians in desperate need of a rapid increase in their fund of knowledge on VBC and HCC coding. 

 

Is there really no other way? 

 

Full disclosure: this is a blog post by a brand that has pioneered another way to teaching HCC coding to doctors. And it really works. But we are not here to sell you our solution. At the moment, we are only here to say as loudly and as clearly as we can that Ye Olde Ways™ are not working. And if there is a better way—which there is—we need to be running toward it like actual lives depended on it. And not just patient lives – doctor lives, nurse lives, NPs and PAs and coders and operators and the IT team, too. There is a lot at stake, and it’s time to search for answers. 

 

Our Offer

If HCC Coding and Physician Burnout are at all on your radar, we’d love to share a solution to both. Better solutions are out there – and they outperform seminars and code-of-the-month email blasts for engagement and results. And they free up your coaches to focus on the 20% that need it the most. 

To learn more, book a conversation with our team!

 

Looking for a quick HCC coding knowledge hack?  Use this Quick Guide to identify HCC codes for risk adjustment. Diagnosis coding for value-based payment models is one of the key drivers for innovation in modern healthcare – aligning incentives with care in ways that were only talked about in decades past. However, without appropriate and deep HCC coding knowledge, properly documenting chronic conditions that risk adjust is simply not possible.

 

The need for HCC coding knowledge continues to rise, from ACOs to ACO REACH and to payors and groups in VBC contracts with varying degrees of risk. The CMS’s Alternative Payment Models (APM) increasingly require clinicians to have more than a basic understanding of HCC coding – mastery is becoming the industry standard. Mapping ICD-10 codes to HCCs (Hierarchical Condition Categories) is more than a simple conversion, knowing when and where to use which codes—and how to document accurately–is vital.

 

And while we advocate for tools that increase the fund of HCC coding knowledge across all relevant clinicians, we also know that your team almost certainly needs a quick-fix that can be deployed today. 

 

So we’ve built you one! Download the HCC Quick Guide Today!

 

You must be able to diagnose the severity of your patient population’s illness in order to accurately and effectively provide care. Obviously, there is an ROI discussion to be had around lost revenue for under-billing for sicker patients. But the bigger risk is under-caring for those patients, and failing to avoid preventable visits to the “expensive care” department.

And while there are those who believe that HCC coding should be in the bailiwick of coders, and clinicians should stick to treating the patients, most modern doctors understand the complex interweaving of the relationship between practicing medicine and following protocols. Diagnosing with a deep understanding of HCC coding and its impact on RAF scores and patient outcomes is an essential component of the modern doctor’s toolkit.

 

One key piece of that toolkit is a modern approach to HCC coding education, such as what you’ll find in the DoctusTech app. But for today’s lesson, we’re going to give you the shortcut – our HCC Quick Guide, free download.

 

“We have found that by using a simple workflow intervention and tool, physicians can ensure that their diagnosis coding is informed by HCCs and optimized for payers’ risk adjustment calculations.”

– AAFP

 

Obviously, we’re biased as to which workflow intervention tool physicians should be using. But before deploying a tool inside the EMR, physicians must be educated on HCC coding – and the old ways are simply not working. So if you need a quick fix, get our Quick Guide. And if it’s time to look into a real solution to cut onboarding times, and get physicians engaged in learning HCC coding and documentation, maybe it’s time to look into more than a quick fix.

 

And as you identify which chronic conditions have HCC codes that impact risk adjustment, documenting those correctly in the patient’s chart is an important next step. BUT, even if your team is capturing the appropriate codes, but not appropriately documenting, that diagnosis and the dollars earned against it are itching for a bad time. Not only is CMS bringing audits, the DOJ has increased scrutiny on VBC contracts and is incentivizing whistleblowers. This is no longer an area where you can get by on good intentions.  

In VBC, not every chronic condition contributes to risk adjustment, so look for those conditions are weighted for risk adjustment – these will be the ones that require more costly care. Don’t rely on the EHR to do this for you, HCC coding knowledge is critical. 

 

Our HCC Quick Guide can help you as your team dips toes in the water, but again, today’s clinicians badly need a deep and growing fund of knowledge on which diagnoses map to HCC codes, which contribute to risk adjustment, and how to document them.

 

Download the HCC Quick Guide now – print and post it, carry it, laminate it! This will be a vital tool as you lean into risk adjustment

 

Practicing in value-based payment models requires clinicians to diagnose and document all appropriate chronic conditions that contribute to Risk Adjustment Factor.  Each condition must be documented and readdressed annually. This is a critical piece of the annual wellness visit, and any further appointments. 

 

You cannot treat what you don’t diagnose. And you cannot bill against poorly documented diagnoses that have not been properly HCC coded. And you don’t get paid to treat conditions that do not contribute to Risk. So when you put that all together, HCC coding education should be a central component of your team’s toolkit.

 

Download the HCC Quick Guide Today!

The US healthcare market is leaning in the direction of Full Risk Value-Based Care. While the system is often characterized as a monolith; a massive, unwieldy machine (and as immovable objects go, it is a big one),  that big machine is trending steadily toward full risk value-based care.

 

The CMS recently reported that total spending reached “$4.1 trillion or $12,530 per person [in 2020]. As a share of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, health spending accounted for 19.7 percent…” That’s one out of five American dollars. And somehow, with all that money on the table, we still struggle to improve outcomes. (Source: CMS)

 

According to OECD.org, of the 38 member nations, The US spends more per-capita on healthcare than any other member nation. Also, our already lower-than-average life-expectancy took a higher-than-average hit from the pandemic. “The United States recorded the largest drop in life expectancy of any OECD country during the pandemic, falling from 78.9 in 2019 to 77.3 in 2020 – a decline of 1.6 years, compared to 0.6 years on average.” (Source: OECD)

 

With the US staring down these and myriad other daunting data points, this is an ideal time to chart a path forward, up, and out of the quagmire of fee-for-service stagnation. Thankfully, change is coming. As we recently posted in our blog, the total dollars of US healthcare spending are gradually shifting away from FFS, through Quality, and into risk models. 

 

CMS Innovation Center has stated that its Goals for 2030 are that all Medicare and the vast majority of Medicaid beneficiaries will be in a care relationship with accountability for quality and total cost of care by 2030. They aren’t specifically stating the “full risk model” as their 2030 goal, but that is the trend and a worthy goal.

 

And on the topic of trends, doctors increasingly favor full-risk payment models. While educating clinicians—without the right tools—can be a daunting task,  more and more clinicians are moving their small practices into full risk value-based care contracts. And while engagement is tricky without the right resources, doctors are consistently in agreement that the incentive alignment inherent within a full risk model is moving the business of medicine in a direction that validates the same noble reasons that compelled them into medical school: patient outcomes. And so long as doctors are supported with access to engaging and impactful HCC coding education, the transition to full risk will continue.

 

Why is Full Risk Value-Based Care growing, year over year?

As mentioned above, doctors practice medicine for one very simple reason: they want to help people. And while the past century has focused heavily on healing sick people, full risk value-based care models are empowering doctors to achieve an even nobler goal: to keep people healthy. And while pulling a sick patient back from the brink certainly has its thrills, real job satisfaction is found in keeping patients living stable, healthy lives – far away from the avoidable acute events that would have sent them to the ED.

 

Why do doctors care about Full Risk in Value-Based Care?

When the financial incentives align to incentivize better outcomes, or put another way, healthier patients, one product of that machine is a steady stream of happy doctors. The business goals agree with the doctors’ goals. And with the advent of better clinician HCC coding education tools, engagement is on the rise. And engaging with the tools to improve specificity and accuracy in diagnoses puts clinicians at the forefront of change. The more they engage, the more they learn; the more they learn, the better they diagnose; the better they diagnose, the more they can impact patient health before an avoidable acute health event occurs. Simply put, improving clinician engagement on HCC coding directly impacts every bottom line. ROI improves, ability to deploy more preventative measures improves, patient health improves and physician satisfaction inevitably rises.

 

What is slowing the transition to Full Risk in Value-Based Care?

Inevitably, there are blockers. As they say, no good deed goes unpunished. And it’s incredibly hard to move a massive machine – especially one that comprises one fifth of the nation’s gross domestic product. And frankly, much of the for-profit side of healthcare is resistant to a move away from fee-for-service. That model has grown the revenue streams of many massive corporations, whose shareholders are opposed to not-making-money. And whose leadership has a fiduciary responsibility to those shareholders to keep making money. And while Full Risk in Value-Based Care does show strong ROI, that revenue comes with strings—and risk—attached.

 

“There is activity in value-based care, but what we see as the biggest challenge is provider engagement… Providers need to understand how to be successful in value-based arrangements.”

 

— Dr. Andrei Gonzales, assistant vice president of value-based payments for Change Healthcare

 

The Department of Justice released an analysis of all False Claims Act settlements and judgments in the fiscal year 2021, and healthcare was the source of 5 out of 6 BILLION dollars in settlements and judgments. (Read more on our blog HERE and HERE) Medical fraud took the top line, but Medicare Advantage abuses like upcoding and over-coding—diagnosing conditions that were not in the chart—came in close behind. And these cash-grabs are only the ones that were caught – but they represent enough of a red flag that CMS, the DOJ, and the OSI are all looking very hard at recent changes in payment models. And a RADV audit is no longer the bogeyman exclusively haunting payors. In an effort to restore public trust and recoup misspent healthcare dollars, the Department of Justice and a host of other agency audits are increasing every year. And with whistleblowers rewarded up to 30% of the significant financial judgments, every employee stands to become a robber-baron just for speaking up. In effect, taking a massive cut of the ill-gotten gains.

 

Dr. Andrei Gonzales, assistant vice president of value-based payments for Change Healthcare said, “There is activity in value-based care, but what we see as the biggest challenge is provider engagement… Providers need to understand how to be successful in value-based arrangements.” (Source: ModernHealthcare)

 

Educating doctors is not an easy thing. Even Hippocrates himself required future doctors to vow to teach his children how to practice medicine if they cared to learn. Because with the ever-evolving fund of knowledge required just to stay in the stethoscope, the challenge is steep. And for modern providers, the ask is bigger than ever. But it does not have to be like Sysiphus, pushing his rock uphill every day, only to watch it roll back down again. Thankfully, with modern HCC education platforms like the DoctusTech app and integrated tools to drive engagement, today’s doctors have the potential to learn HCC coding faster and more deeply than ever before.  

 

And the faster physicians can learn HCC coding, the faster we will see the industry shift toward to Full Risk in Value-Based Care. And while it may not be a panacea for all that ails the US healthcare system, the transition toward Full Risk in Value-Based Care is the single best way to align incentives, ease the clinician workload, improve outcomes and decrease costs. 

 

Want to try teaching HCC coding to your doctors in a way that really works? No more zoom calls, no more email blasts – a truly engaging platform with proven results. Demo the DoctusTech app today – your doctors will thank you. The ROI from your risk contracts will thank you. Your patients will thank you. And you will help the US take a critical step toward Full Risk in Value-Based Care that actually works.

Book a demo with DoctusTech’s Co-founder today!

Specificity and accuracy are the keys to any successful Value-Based Care program. And clinical vignettes are a great way to learn.

 

Five years ago, the AAFP (American Academy of Family Physicians) published a crash course to educate family physicians on HCC coding. To this day, the clinical vignettes from this family physician HCC coding education course are still a great example of how and why family physicians need to diagnose specifically and code accurately in order to fully capture and treat the actual needs of their patients.

 

So if you are trying to educate family physicians on HCC coding, this Crash Course is a great place to start. As always, the M.E.A.T. criteria must be met in order to properly diagnose and accurately code any diagnosis. 

 

What is the M.E.A.T Criteria in HCC coding?

• Monitor – signs, symptoms, disease progression, disease regression 
• Evaluate – test results, medication effectiveness, response to treatment 
• Assess – ordering tests, discussion, review records, counseling 
• Treat – medications, therapies, other modalities

 

And here are the clinical vignettes presented in the AAFP’s HCC Coding Education Crash Course for Family Physicians:

 

Risk Adjustment Scores vs. Optimized Risk Adjustment Scores in Common Primary Care Encounters

Family Physician HCC Coding Example #1

Patient with DM II presents for routine follow-up. A1C 8.3. Also has stable COPD, oxygen dependent. O2 DME papers signed earlier this year.

 

ICD-10	Description	RAF		ICD-10	Description	RAF
J44.9	COPD	0.328		J44.9	COPD	0.328
E11.9	DM Unspec	0.118		Z99.81	Oxygen Dep
				J96.11	Chronic Resp Failure w/ hypoxia	0.318
				E11.65	DM w/ hyperglycemia	0.318
	Total risk=	0.446			Total optimized risk=	0.964

 

 

Family Physician HCC Coding Example #2

68 y/o patient with hypertension and hyperlipidemia and BMI 37.2. Has been using CPAP for years.

 

ICD-10	Description	RAF		ICD-10	Description	RAF
I10	Hypertension			I10	Hypertension
E78.5	Hyperlipidemia			E78.5	Hyperlipidemia
G47.33	Sleep Apnea			G47.33	Sleep apnea
				Z68.37	BMI 37.0-37.9
				E66.01	Morbid Obesity	0.273
	Total risk=	0.00			Total optimized risk=	0.273

 

Family Physician HCC Coding Example #3

Patient with diabetes and polyneuropathy. Right great toe amputated several years ago. He continues to smoke. Patient brought in multiple records from other providers. In addition to refill of meds, you counseled for 5 minutes regarding smoking cessation. You spend 35 minutes reviewing and summarizing the outside records and include that in the visit note.

 

ICD-10	Description	RAF		ICD-10	Description	RAF
E11.9	DM Unspec	0.118		E11.41	DM w/ polyneuropathy	0.318
F17.219	Nicotine dep/cig			F17.419	Nicotine dep/cig
				Z89.412	Acquired loss L great toe	0.588
	Total risk=	0.118			Total optimized risk=	0.906

 

Family Physician HCC Coding Example #4

Patient with HTN comes in for upper respiratory infection. Remote history of colon cancer and now has a chronic colostomy bag. DME orders signed earlier in the year.

 

ICD-10	Description	RAF		ICD-10	Description	RAF
J06.9	Upper Respiratory Infection			J06.9	Upper Respiratory Infection
I10	Hypertension			I10	Hypertension
				Z93.3	Colostomy status	0.651
	Total risk=	0.00			Total optimized risk=	0.651

 

 

Family Physician HCC Coding Example #5

76 y/o presents with swelling of the left arm, redness, and pain. He takes warfarin for atrial fibrillation. He is also a liver transplant patient. Given IM ceftriaxone. PT/INR and CBC ordered.

 

ICD-10	Description	RAF		ICD-10	Description	RAF
L03.114	Cellulitis of L upper ext			L03.114	Cellulitis of L upper ext
I48.91	Unspec afib	0.295		I48.2	Chronic afib	0.295
				Z79.01	Long term anticoag therapy
				Z97.4	Liver transplant status	0.891
	Total risk=	0.295			Total optimized risk=	1.186

 

Family Physician HCC Coding Example #6

Patient for follow-up of major depression, improving. New med started 6 weeks ago.

 

ICD-10	Description	RAF		ICD-10	Description	RAF
F32.9	Major depression, single, unspec			F32.1	Major depression, single episode, moderate	0.33
	Total risk= .000				Total optimized risk=	0.33

 

 

When educating doctors on HCC coding, be sure to avoid common HCC coding pitfalls by remembering these rules:

• Use documentation and coding to capture the severity of illness/risk of high cost

• Make sure that you capture the complexity of the patient

• Major issues need to be captured at least once a year (clock restarts Jan. 1)

 

 

To access the full AAFP HCC Coding Education for Family Physicians Crash Course, Click Here.

Need a real solution to train your family physicians on HCC coding for value-based care?

While this crash course is a great place to start, family physicians prefer to learn HCC coding and documentation for Risk Adjustment in the DoctusTech HCC coding education app. It is the only tool that consistently ranks #1 with both physicians and operators. Demo the app today.

Requiring clinicians to learn one more thing—especially when HCC coding does not feel connected to treating patients—is a big ask. Expecting them to learn in ways that are both ineffective and profoundly dull is just plain cruel.

 

Doctors talk a lot about behavior change in patients. But behavior change in doctors is incredibly tricky to effect. But to make Value-Based Care actually work, behavior change has to happen at the clinician level. Is it any surprise that asking doctors to sit in a classroom (or on a Zoom call) for an hour to be lectured on HCC coding is both wildly unpopular and not actually effective? 

 

The importance of clinicians mastering HCC coding cannot be overstated. Without proper coding and documentation, Value-Based Care will fail. So we need doctors to understand Hierarchical Condition Categories: how to use them, when to use them, which ones to use and for what. And ultimately, why.

 

You cannot treat what you do not diagnose. 

 

(And you cannot diagnose what you do not document.)

 

(And you cannot document what you don’t know.)

 

While we acknowledge that HCC coding lectures do result in limited initial behavior change, doctors inevitably regress back to the mean. They return to doing what they already know. An email blast with the code of the month has even less impact than a lecture. And even the “gold standard” of one-to-one coaching returns a much smaller lasting impact than the time required to conduct the coaching.

 

Onboarding a new clinician with zero HCC knowledge can be as daunting as moving established providers into Value-Based Care arrangements. 

 

So what is the answer? If the gold standard only makes a small dent in the needed fund of knowledge, and classroom learning is only marginally effective at short-term behavior change—and email blasts are worth less than the paper they’re not printed on—is all hope lost?

Please allow me to introduce you to the DoctusTech HCC Coding Education App.

Five reasons you should try this app for your team:

 

1. 1. Do something different. If you are doing what the rest of healthcare has done for years, your approach is not likely to be any more effective. Ask your CDI team. Ask your doctors. Ask your Director of Quality. It’s time to try something new. Our app teaches HCC coding in a new, fresh way that doctors actually enjoy. We use the socratic method, the same technique used when studying for boards: clinical vignettes.
   2. Timing matters: act fast, learn fast. By not embracing HCC coding fast enough, your VBC contracts are not generating the revenue they need to. And in order to support clinicians and patients, you need to learn and adopt – faster.  The in-app lift requires less time than microwave popcorn, per week, and delivers real-world behavior change right away. Our app is fast.
   3. Money matters. Patient care is directly related to revenue. Revenue is directly related to RAF accuracy. And RAF accuracy is downstream from HCC knowledge. Invest in your clinicians, change behavior, capture and document new diagnoses, boost RAF accuracy. It all starts with changing the behavior of your doctors. Our app changes behavior.
   4. Happy doctors practice better medicine. By using a tool they enjoy, and driving results right away, your doctors will thank you. Our app has a 90+% month-over-month engagement rate across all clients. Our app makes doctors happy.
   5. 25 Hours of CME. Learning HCC coding in the DoctusTech app is not only fun and rewarding, it also provides 25 hours of accredited CME per year. So if you are asking your doctors to learn HCC coding, give them the tools they need to succeed, along with a nice 25 hour CME bonus on the side. Our app provides 25 hours of CME.

    

   Try the HCC Coding Education App that is changing behavior and paving the way for your successful VBC program.

2. Demo the app today.

In Friday’s “State of the Department” address, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra spoke candidly about upcoding and overcharging in Medicare Advantage. After offering prepared remarks on the continuing COVID public health emergency, Robert King of Fierce Healthcare asked very pointedly about upcoding in Medicare Advantage. Secretary Becerra answered with few specifics, but a clear directive that upcoding, overcharging and costs within Medicare are very much a priority of the department.

 

“All those things are being examined… We’re going to get our money’s worth for Americans.     – Xavier Becerra, HHS Secretary

 

>> Robert King: Hi, Robert King with Fierce Healthcare. Thanks so much for taking my question. 

I want to talk to you about the Medicare Advantage program, which has grown a lot in popularity, but it has undergone criticism from progressive lawmakers about risk adjustment tactics like upcoding, which is leading to Medicare overpayments. 

 

Do you share those concerns? And if so, what actions is HHS doing to kind of alleviate these issues? 

 

>> Xavier Becerra: Robert, great question, and thanks for asking a question that seems to be a little bit different from some of the others. 

So, Medicare Advantage started as a program where we were told by the plans that are offering Medicare Advantage that they could provide as good a level of services health care to seniors on Medicare as the existing traditional system of Medicare, what we call a fee for service, but for a better price. 

 

So it was going to be a good deal for Medicare recipients to have access to good health care services through a Medicare Advantage plan, and it was going to be a good deal for the taxpayers because we would save money in the process. 

 

So far, from what I understand in the evidence, the data, it shows that we spend more per Medicare recipient through the Medicare Advantage program than we do through the fee for service program for Medicare recipients. 

 

We have seen some evidence that in certain areas there seems to be charges that go beyond what would be necessary. 

 

You mentioned the upcoding, which means that a provider will say that they provided a service that is greater or more intense than what was actually needed by the patient, and therefore they get a higher level of reimbursement. 

 

All those things are being examined. There is clearly evidence out there on a lot of these things, and we are taking a close look at how we can make Medicare, writ large, work for Americans and for taxpayers. 

 

We’re going to get our money’s worth for Americans. 

 

We want to make sure that every American senior, every American who receives Medicare, gets what they deserve. Americans work really hard for their Medicare, and so we want to make sure it’s there for them. We don’t want anyone overcharging seniors or any other Medicare recipient for services, and we don’t want taxpayers to be duped. 

 

And so we’re going to do everything we can, whether it is Medicare Advantage or Medicare fee for service to make sure that we’re getting our money’s worth. 

 

And with that, Secretary Becerra concluded the press conference. While no specifics were given as to just what exactly HHS and Secretary Becerra have planned, it’s clear that the concerns about upcoding, overcoding, and overcharging in Medicare Advantage are clearly in their sights.

 

View just the Medicare Advantage portion here: https://youtu.be/WJUf4akou_Y?t=3538

View the full address here: https://youtu.be/WJUf4akou_Y

 

Levi Wiggins: Alright. Here we are. Live with Dr. Kazi for Year End Preparation for 2022: things to stop doing, things to start doing and things to keep doing. Our host, as always, is Dr. Kazi. Give us a brief introduction!

 

Farshid Kazi, MD: Thank you everybody. Farshid Kazi, internist by training, with a palliative care focus, then hospitalist, outpatient doctor, and kind of grew up in the value-based care system. And now I’m here with DoctusTech.

 

 

 

Levi Wiggins: All right now, I want to jump right in. So we’re going to start with things to stop, what to start its place. And when we get to the end, we’re going to talk about some things to continue. 

 

So the first bad habit of VBC and HCC documentation to break in 2022 is the 60 minute lectures once or twice a year – stop doing that. But why Dr. Kazi?

 

Farshid Kazi, MD: Uh, other than the fact that they’re mind-numbingly boring, and as we all know, we don’t actually retain the information. The data is very clear that doctors don’t have sustained behavior change from it. So if you think about your attention span, post-college, I’m assuming most of you can’t sit and listen to a lecture for 60 minutes anymore.

 

Nobody can, so why do we keep doing it? Because it makes us feel good. We should stop doing it, call it for what it is. Let’s find a better way to meaningfully engage doctors, teach them about this information, and then hold them accountable. And what that means can vary by organization. It can mean that you’re running some type of test to make sure knowledge retention is happening.

 

 

You can do one-to-one coaching, which is still a very meaningful way to give feedback to your docs. But please, please stop doing the one hour lectures—for the sake of your doctors—and start holding them accountable for real knowledge retention through one of many ways. And DoctusTech is one of those as well.

 

Levi Wiggins: Wait, so you’re saying the 60 minute lectures, just like they do in medical school (sarcasm)! Right? That’s how doctors like to learn, right?

 

Farshid Kazi, MD: Yeah. I mean, Levi, there’s no magic there, right? So you can teach doctors multiple different ways. Teach them with clinical vignettes. You can teach them with one-to-one feedback. You can even teach them by doing charts and dissections, but what you should not do is put them in a classroom setting for an hour and teach them about ICD 10. 

 

 

Levi Wiggins: That sounds so boring. Alright. The next bad habit to stop as we roll into the next year: pre-templating notes for doctors with new diagnoses. “Here doc, I think you missed one!”

 

Farshid Kazi, MD: Yeah, we all do it. Any organization has a lot of different strategies on making it easier for doctors. We get it. Doctors are really busy. There’s a lot to do. But pre-templating notes, giving them the diagnosis, is really frowned upon by CMS and DOJ. And if you haven’t seen our white paper around RADV audits, you should take a look at it, because there really have been some slaps on the wrist saying, look, let the doctors do what they’ve been trained to do, make clinical decisions.

 

And that should not be by prompting from non-clinicians around new diagnoses.

 

 

 

Levi Wiggins: So the thing to start in place there, uh, improving physician workflows inside the EMR. Tell me more about that without a doctor’s tech infomercial. I’m warning you!

 

 Farshid Kazi, MD:  So when we think about how we make that easier for doctors, oftentimes we’re trying to do the work for doctors, but really that’s a heavy lift and the hardest solution. Fix the problem inside the EMR. Find a way to get the data that you have outside of your EMR, into the EMR, and solve for the issue, so that doctors can make clinical decisions while they’re with their patients at the point of care.

 

 Levi Wiggins: Okay. And I’ll go ahead and make the infomercial being the marketing. We have a way to do that. So if you’re trying to break that bad habit, hit me up on LinkedIn.

 

 

The next thing is stop the checklists of claims-driven diagnoses without supporting evidence – or start getting in big trouble. 

 

 Farshid Kazi, MD: Again, the same slap on the hand that happens from pre-templating notes with diagnosis for doctors can happen when you start putting bad data in front of them. We all know claims data is notoriously noisy and inadvertently inaccurate. And so if you start to put inaccurate data in front of your doctors, hoping that they’re going to be a hundred percent accurate, you’re going to find yourself in a bad spot.

 

So really, starting to think of, “how do I get the right data in front of the doctors at the right time with meaningful support so they can make a true informed decision” is critical here as far to part of your accurate risk adjustment documentation. 

 

 Levi Wiggins: We do talk a lot about that checkbox culture, and that’s not why you help patients. You don’t want to check boxes. You want to help them. 

 

 Farshid Kazi, MD: You give the doctors a list of check boxes to go through. Their only mission is to get through that. It’s not to make sure it’s accurate. It becomes really  a difficult task for them to do. But if you’re giving them insights, giving them clinical guidelines, and letting them do what they do best—which is make medical diagnoses and treat patients—they will optimize their documentation and it will optimize your risk adjustment score accuracy.

 

 

Levi Wiggins: So the start on that is to make more of an effort to get supporting documentation and then provide it to your doctors with any claims data. Does that sound about right?

 

Farshid Kazi, MD: That’s absolutely right.  

 

Levi Wiggins: So when we look at these organizations that are really forward-thinking, they’re kind of where everybody wants to be. There are a few things we see that they’re doing. And if your organization is doing this, first off, I want to commend you – because you guys are doing the hard work of making this easier for the doctors. Thank you. You guys are heroes.

 

 

Ok, of the things to continue in 2022 internal audits. I know you hate it, but there’s so much better than an external audit. 

 

 Farshid Kazi, MD: Tell me about it. Yeah, gone are the days of just trying to increase your RAF. That should never be part of the nomenclature. It should not be the talk talk-track for any of your teammates. Really, you need to be thinking about how to make your documentation accurate.

 

Not only for increasing the proper diagnoses, but looking for inaccurate over-documentation. It happens inadvertently. It happens in every organization and, some of the data is showing somewhere between 5% and 15% of data submitted is inaccurate. So starting to look both ways and telling Medicare, CMS, DOJ: we are doing our best to make sure we’re documenting accurately.

 

And that’s because we are internally auditing for anything that is over-coding. Give the money back before you ever receive it. So you don’t get into trouble. 

 

 Levi Wiggins: That’s absolutely right. And, and it’s partly just an ethical thing. Partly it’s an administrative thing, but for those of you who are doing those internal audits, you guys are true heroes.

 

 

 Levi Wiggins: OK, the next thing to continue for 2022 is accountability for your doctors! 

 

Farshid Kazi, MD: Yeah, too often, we start to, to spread ourselves thin. Everyone’s doing everything. It’s a team approach, but really, who’s going to be held accountable for the knowledge game? How do we make sure the doctors have retained information to be accurate and compliant with their documentation?

 

We need to show some type of effort and accountability. And again, thinking through this is not easy to do, transitioning from a fee for service model to value-based care requires a massive change – and dovetails into a few other things that good practices are doing. But really, having a tracking dashboard, showing that it matters.

And then giving feedback to your doctors is critical around that. 

 

 

 Levi Wiggins: Now this one, to be honest, I don’t really know what this means. What I want you guys to continue is time allotments and you and I are both going to find out what this means now! 

 

 Farshid Kazi, MD: Documenting accurately takes some time. And so if you’re going from a predominantly fee for service driven model to a value-based care driven model, you need to get C-suite buy-in to have commitment on increasing time of visits, giving doctors time to document accurately. So they’re not trying to get done quickly, working in the car, at home on the weekends, or even worse – while they’re with family.

 

It’s giving them time to document accurately and change the schedule – it has to be done with intentionality. You cannot fit the same model of value-based care into fee for service and expect something totally different when it comes to outcomes. 

 

 Levi Wiggins: Oh, that makes perfect sense!

 

OK, the last thing we have for those of you who are doing it, continue, keep up the fight! And for those of you who are not doing it, this is the year to make those changes. Clinically driven ROI. Over to you, David, in the studio!

 

 Farshid Kazi, MD: Levi, too often risk adjustment documentation accuracy is around financials. It’s about the numbers and the dollars coming. Why does that matter? The mission behind value-based care is we’re trying to help reinvest into delivering better outcomes.

 

And so if you do your documentation accurately, you can invest in the palliative care, you can invest in the tele-health, or remote device monitoring. So show your doctors how that capital is being repurposed towards improving patient care. And all of a sudden you will see buy-in and commitment.

 

I am a big believer that my colleagues are trying to do the best for their patients, but the infrastructure… The healthcare system was not built to help them succeed. So as you make this transition, if you start to show how you’re reinvesting those dollars, it will have a meaningful impact for your doctors.

 

 Levi Wiggins: That’s great! Now, forgive my naiveté here, but I know we encounter organizations that aren’t doing some of these things. And to me, you know, I’m just over here in my office, doing my own thing. Help me understand why some organizations aren’t embracing these things, they should start still doing the things they should stop.

 

Is it, is it budget? Is it time? Is it sloth and human frailty? What is it? Lack of resources? What’s what stops an organization from doing the things they should do –  this list that they know they should start and stop and continue? 

 

 Farshid Kazi, MD: Can I say, all of them, Levi? Is that a cop-out answer? I mean, it could be any number of those, right? But there’s no question. If you look at this list, things we’ve talked about, they should be hopefully obvious and things that you should do. And yet 80% of the groups we talk to do some combination of the things we’re asking people to stop. It’s clear as day that the DOJ has a high degree of focus on documentation accuracy, as does CMS.

 

 And so, right now is the time to start thinking about how you stop this. You get your C-suite, buy-in have physician champions and try to do this the right way from the get-go. 

 

 Levi Wiggins: And this can all be done… every single one of these can be done without ever booking a demo of our tools, talking to us – like, you don’t need us to do this stuff, right?

 

 Levi Wiggins: Obviously we help, we help automate a lot of these processes. Am I Canadian? I just said “PROcesses.” So I’m probably Canadian. Anyway, we do make it easier, but they can do it without us. Right?

 

 Farshid Kazi, MD: A hundred percent. The purpose of this is so that it makes you feel a little bit uncomfortable and saying, Hey, let’s try to do 2022 better.

 

And yes, we, a hundred percent can help. And that’s why we built DoctusTech, but you don’t need us. You don’t need a vendor to do this. You can really start to do this with the resources you have without spending a single dime. 

 

 Levi Wiggins: But also, DoctusTech: solutions for people like you who need to stop doing things they did last year and do different things in 2022!

 

 Levi Wiggins: All right. That’s a wrap! Ok, to sum it up, here’s the full list:

 

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Click below to see how we solve for this at DoctusTech .

 

Need better RAF scores and recapture rates in your practice? Demo the DoctusTech integrated tools, and learn how to make your value-based care contracts more profitable. Schedule a demo today.

 

CMS released its final Medicare Shared Savings Program rule, called “Pathways for Success” for ACOs. The new rule is designed to help establish a path toward risk, with a heavy focus on Risk Adjustment Coding.

CMS = Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services || MSSP = Medicare Shared Savings Program || ACO = Accountable Care Organization

 

MSSP lays out a clear transition to risk, and allows ACOs to start at different points, depending on where they are as an organization. Also, it extends the agreement period from 3 to 5 years, which provides more time to measure performance against the benchmark. This creates a Basic and Enhanced track option en route to risk. (See Image A below)

 

Image A Basic & Enhanced Tracks

 

There are several best practices an ACO can adopt to help succeed within the new model. Many ACOs are now looking toward Risk Adjustment which not only allows highlighting of high-risk patient populations, but will also provides a more accurate way of predicting cost and determining reimbursement.

 

The adoption of HCC risk adjustment best practices has been recognized by Medicare Advantage plans for several years. In contrast, ACOs who participate in Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) have opted away from any type of program, as they felt it had little effect on their benchmark. This is often due to an ACOs past experience within the MSSP.  However, the new changes open many doors to those who may have shied away from risk in the past, for reasons such as:

 

• Benchmarks were based 100% on an ACO’s historical success.
• No adjustments were made on the true risk score of the beneficiary, thus no penalty for similar low risk scores year over year.
• False/inaccurate predictions of condition profiles of beneficiaries.
• Re-enrolled beneficiaries given a demographic adjustment only, making it very difficult for an ACO to improve coding and increase benchmarks.

 

Given the new Pathways to Success Rule, ACO groups are being shown risk adjustment in a different light. There are no more restrictions on RAF changes for the historical beneficiary. Instead, there is a 3% limit on the total increase from historical to performance year.

 

ACOs continue to lag in adoption of HCC coding practices. From the most recent 2019 Shared Savings PUF file, 49% of groups have seen a drop in RAF from benchmark year 3 (BY3) to Performance Year (PY1). RAF scores on these groups dropped from 1.0149 within BY3 to .9819 in PY1 on average, showing a -3.25% drop (see below in Image B). As a result, ACOs could have faced a significant uphill battle over the next few performance years as they attempt to true up their future benchmarks. This is one significant issue addressed by MSSP.

 

Image B: RAF Decrease PUF file 2019 ACO MSSP

 

Coding improvements are capped at 3%, however, with this drop (shown above) from BY3 to PY1, RAF improvement can actually be significantly above the allowed 3% to offset the drop of -3.25%. Therefore, now is the time for ACOs to begin adopting HCC Risk Adjustment best practices to help in this effort. 

 

By adopting best practices within HCC coding, you can ensure that your medical group has the highest specificity of diagnoses, ensuring quality of care and compliance.

 

What exactly are these best Risk Adjustment Coding practices that can be adopted?

 

• Educating Providers
• Making correct preparations prior to encounter
• Documentation of all chronic conditions that are current
• Ensuring a clean clinical workflow to display conditions for clinicians
• Post-encounter review for quality assurance

 

As value-based care is being adopted on a wider scale, the old model of Fee for Service payment is slowly dwindling. More time is being spent with a patient to treat all chronic conditions at the encounter is becoming best practice.

 

One of the major issues that medical groups contend with is the ability to use all relevant data to create an aligned clinical workflow that helps the physician recapture, diagnose, and reject any conditions which are inaccurate. A melee of data is combined in the form of claims data, RX data, member eligibility, historical diagnosis, and utilization. The ability to organize this data into actionable insights, clinical suggestions, and quality opportunities is a huge task for any ACO. 

 

Here at DoctusTech, we can offer a solution to this issue…..

 

Click below to see how we solve for Risk Adjustment Coding at DoctusTech .

 

Need better RAF scores and recapture rates in your practice? Demo the DoctusTech integrated tools, and learn how to make your value-based care contracts more profitable. Schedule a demo today.