In this episode, Victoria Hernandez, Senior Coding Analyst with BESLER, provides us with a glimpse into BESLER’s next Webinar as part of The Hospital Finance Academy – Coding Updates from IPPS 2025 – presented live on Wednesday, October 9, at 1 PM ET.
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Learn how to listen to The Hospital Finance Podcast® on your mobile device.Highlights of this episode include:
- What we can expect from upcoming webinar
- Topics and updates that will be shared
- Codes to be impacted in Final Rule
- Specific conditions and body systems that will be covered
- Need-to-know CMS updates
Kelly Wisness: Hi, this is Kelly Wisness. Welcome back to the award-winning Hospital Finance Podcast. We’re pleased to welcome back Victoria Hernandez, senior coding analyst with BESLER. In this episode, Victoria will provide us with a glimpse into BESLER’s next webinar as part of The Hospital Finance Academy – Coding Updates from IPPS 2025 – that we’re presenting live on Wednesday, October 9, at 1 PM, Eastern Time. Welcome back and thank you for joining us, Victoria.
Victoria Hernandez: Thank you for having me again, Kelly.
Kelly: All right, well, let’s go ahead and jump in. So can you share some information with us, like, what can we expect from your webinar on October 9th?
Victoria: Yes, absolutely. So, our upcoming webinar on October 9th, it’s called Coding Updates Inpatient Prospective Payment System or IPPS 2025, of course in reference to fiscal year 2025. So, every year the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, CMS, they issue a proposed rule and then later a finalized rule. Well, the final rule is here, and the updates are applicable to Medicare fee for service payment rates and policies, and they’re for the inpatient hospitals and long-term care hospitals, all applicable to fiscal year 2025. So, the final rule, it’s published by CMS, and it allows us to understand and to meet the legal requirements for updating Medicare payment policies annually. The final rule updates take effect effective October 1st, 2024. So, there are several items that impact coding. So, we will be covering those changes in our hour-long webinar.
Kelly: That’s wonderful. Thank you, Victoria. So, I understand that every year there are proposed rules and finalized rules with these updates. Can you tell us more about the different topics and updates that you’ll be sharing in the upcoming webinar?
Victoria: Yes, of course. So, at our October 9th webinar, first, we’ll be sharing a little background on the Inpatient Prospective Payment System, so the IPPS part. Then we’ll be covering the impact on the classification system of Medicare Severity Diagnosis Related Groups. That’s the MS-DRGs. So, there are some changes involving MS-DRGs as a whole. So, there’s the new MS-DRGs along with a deleted MS-DRGs. So, there are also MS-DRGs with description or title changes. Now, those changes apply to with or without complications, comorbidities, CCs, or major complications, comorbidities, MCCs. So, we’ll be sharing those breakdowns at our webinar.
Kelly: That’s awesome. These sure seem like important updates to share with all impacted healthcare organizations. So will any other codes be impacted?
Victoria: Yes, actually. So, in addition to the MS-DRGs in their description titles, there are also specific diagnoses and procedure codes impacted. So, we’ll also be covering those, the ICD-10-CM diagnosis codes along with the ICD-10-PCS procedure codes.
Kelly: Fantastic. So just as you mentioned, it sounds like a lot of informative coding changes. Can you give us a peek into which specific conditions or body systems you’ll be covering?
Victoria: Sure. Well, I can tell you that on some of the items on this list, there’s acute leukemia in normal newborns. Those are two on the list for the diagnosis DRG part. Now as for the procedures, there’s laparoscopic biopsy of gallbladder and pancreas, there’s resection of right, large intestines, there’s endovascular cardiac valve procedures, and also interbody spinal fusion procedures. Now those last two, the endovascular cardiac valve procedures and the spinal fusion procedures, the heart and the spine, those two have been challenging areas for many coding professionals in the past. So, this is going to be good information for them.
Kelly: Yeah, it seems like it. And it sounds like this is going to be an informative webinar with need-to-know CMS updates for our audience. So, Victoria, is there anything else you’d like to share with our audience today?
Victoria: Yes, Kelly. So, I would like to invite our listeners from the coding staff, the CDI staff, HIM leadership, the educators out there, and all healthcare professionals really. We invite everyone to attend our upcoming webinar on the coding updates, IPPS 2025 on October 9th. We will be sharing also some references and resources like email, website links with good information on the IPPS final rule for fiscal year 2025. And lastly, BESLER will also be providing our good old CEUs for our attendees. So, I hope everyone can join.
Kelly: Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Victoria, and for sharing this sneak peek into the upcoming The Hospital Finance Academy powered by BESLER Webinar Coding Updates from IPPS 2025 that you’re presenting live on Wednesday, October 9, at 1 PM, Eastern Time. And as Victoria mentioned, we are offering CEUs. Thanks again, Victoria.
Victoria: Thank you, Kelly.
Kelly: And thank you all for joining us for this episode of The Hospital Finance Podcast. Until next time…
[music] This concludes today’s episode of The Hospital Finance Podcast. For show notes and additional resources to help you protect and enhance revenue at your hospital, visit besler.com/podcasts. The Hospital Finance Podcast is a production of BESLER | SMART ABOUT REVENUE, TENACIOUS ABOUT RESULTS.
If you have a topic that you’d like us to discuss on the Hospital Finance podcast or if you’d like to be a guest, drop us a line at update@besler.com.
