Incorrect Medical Coding Corrupts the Core Data Used by Health Care Facilities, Has Negative Consequences Throughout Health Care Industry

GREENWOOD, Ind., May 31, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Guaranteeing accurate, consistent medical codes and patient histories is one of the major challenges for providers and payers today. Medical codes are the starting point for understanding quality of care and making needful improvements. AmeriVeri (http://www.ameriveri.com) provides a code verification process to ensure accuracy and consistency, making benchmarking and improvements possible.

"Medical codes are the core data used in every aspect of modern health care – every provider, payer and facility relies on them," explains AmeriVeri VP of Operations Martin Amberger. "The accuracy of codes therefore has a direct relationship with overall quality of care and the effectiveness of the system as a whole."

Medical coding quality has an impact on multiple aspects of the health care industry. Reimbursement, benchmarking, clinical and financial decision making, policy adoption, and research, among other domains, are all dependent upon accurate medical codes. Moving forward, the system faces significant challenges related to consistency in benchmarking coding quality; identification of the sources of coding errors; assessment of strengths and weaknesses of individual coders to develop educational best practices; and assurance that all codes represent quality data.

Injury and death are only the most serious consequences of medical coding mistakes. Overbilling customers is another possible outcome. Health finance professor Dr. Stephen Parente estimates that 30 to 40% of medical bills contain errors; the Access Project puts that figure closer to 80%. Meanwhile, Kaiser Health News concludes that $68 billion in lost health care spending can be attributed to medical billing mistakes.

The most recent iterations of coding guidelines have begun emphasizing quality of care and patient safety via more specific codes. However, the success of that strategy still depends entirely on accurate reporting by providers and others who handle medical codes. At the same time, several national initiatives on medical coding have been deployed that further emphasize accuracy.

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has made Pay-for-Performance programs a priority, and they're rapidly expanding nationwide within both CMS and other providers. With Pay-for-Performance, providers receive differential payments based on specific measures like patient satisfaction, clinical outcomes, structural reforms (e.g., new IT systems) and quality of patient care. Aligning financial incentives to the delivery of optimal care has the potential to measurably improve the efficiency of health care. Because Pay-for-Performance looks at measures that are typically assigned a medical code, the importance of accuracy in those codes is amplified.

AmeriVeri's answer to this challenge is a pre-payment solution that improves patients' care and ensures accurate medical histories. This added layer of protection offers tangible benefits to both payers and employers. Payers enjoy peace of mind knowing their network has another layer of protection, while also receiving an additional revenue stream. Employers can realize sizable savings for their organization and provide their employees with continuity of care.

Standard, in-house claims management software has its shortcomings, as numerous studies have demonstrated over the years. Errors not captured prior to payment are difficult to correct and can have lasting effects, including both overpayment and inaccurate patient records, or worse – patient injury or death. AmeriVeri consistently captures 3 to 4 coding errors per 100 lines of code, can verify the code accuracy of 1 million claims in 25 minutes and does so without adding new systems or tools to learn.   

About AmeriVeri

AmeriVeri CR, LLC was founded in 2010. The company is privately held with offices located in Greenwood, Indiana and Chicago, Illinois, and code accuracy is assured nationwide in the Major Medical, Workers' Comp and Medicaid arenas with a 1 hour turnaround.

Contact:

Jim Baughman
888 354 8776 ext 701
Email

SOURCE AmeriVeri

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http://www.ameriveri.com