In this episode, we’re pleased welcome Victoria Hernandez, Senior Coding Analyst at BESLER, to give us a glimpse into our upcoming webinar, HCC Best Practices, being presented live on Wednesday, March 20, 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 to expect from the upcoming webinar
- Educational key points for HIM professionals
- Impact of improper payments
- AHIMA CEUs offered
Nancy Robinson: Hi, this is Nancy Robinson, and I’m thrilled to be stepping in as your guest host today on the award-winning Hospital Finance Podcast. We’re pleased to welcome Victoria Hernandez, BESLER’s senior coding analyst. In this episode, Victoria will give us a glimpse into our upcoming webinar, HCC Best Practices, which I will also be joining her live on Wednesday, March 20th at 1:00 PM Eastern Time. Welcome and thank you for joining us, Victoria.
Victoria Hernandez: Thank you, Nancy. It’s definitely a pleasure to be here with you in this podcast.
Nancy: Wonderful. Okay, so let’s jump right in. So, I understand that HCCs are one of the hot topics in healthcare right now. Can you please share some information on what our audience would expect from your webinar on March 20th?
Victoria: Yes, absolutely. So, our upcoming webinar on March 20th is called HCC Best Practices, and we’ll be covering some good information regarding Hierarchical Condition Categories, HCCs. We have a PAC program agenda, which includes Risk Adjustment Overview. We’ll be going over some Medicare enrollment statistics, some common HCCs reported, along with common coding errors identified involving HCC diagnoses. We’ll then also have some practice case scenarios to review together, so we’ll definitely have some good information to cover.
Nancy: Great. That does sound like a jam-packed agenda with solid HCC information. Are there any educational key points for our HIM professionals in the field to leave with after attending this webinar?
Victoria: Yes, there are several actually. So, the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS; they have two specific HCC models, the CMS model and the HHS-HCC model. So, HHS is for Health and Human Services. We will be going over the differences and similarities of both models. Then we’ll be sharing coding and documentation best practices, and we all know those are always good to know since it’s part of every HIM professional’s daily task. These are also important to master for the purpose of aligning with all our regulatory compliance and, of course, prevent denials.
Nancy: I agree that those two are very important and something we promote here at BESLER. Regulatory compliance and preventing denials do seem connected and any best practice tips are a plus. You’ve mentioned statistics. Can you share a little bit more about that?
Victoria: Yes, of course. We’ll share the increase in Medicare enrollment statistics in all the states. We’ll definitely see the shift on how the Medicare population has been selecting the Risk Adjustment Program as enrollees. And in addition to the statistics, we’ll also share some data and information on the impact of improper payments, which again aligns with the goal of quality documentation and regulatory compliance.
Nancy: That’s an important topic. Impact of improper payments can be a webinar by itself, wouldn’t you agree? Can you speak more about that as it relates to HCCs?
Victoria: I totally agree with you on how impact of improper payments is an important topic, Nancy. We’ll be sharing those circumstances when improper payments may happen. As for Risk Adjustment HCCs, the Office of Inspector General, OIG, they perform these Risk Adjustment Data Validation audits. You’ll hear them referred to as RADV. Those are OIG audits focused specifically on these HDCs. So, we’ll see the government is definitely proactive with monitoring proper reporting of HCCs. I definitely encourage facilities to perform their own mock audits or practice audits so that they’re prepared for the real OIG RADV audits.
Nancy: It sounds like the webinar will really be covering different topics related to HCCs. There’s the coding part, the HCC models, statistics, compliance, audits, and also practice case scenarios. I’m sure our audience will walk away with key best practices. Do you have anything else to share?
Victoria: I do encourage our listeners to attend our HCC Best Practices Webinar on March 20th. Another piece of good news is that BESLER will be providing these AHIMA CEUs to those who are able to attend, and I am looking forward to it.
Nancy: Thank you so much for joining us, Victoria, and for sharing this sneak peek into BESLER’s upcoming webinar, HCC Best Practices, that we’re presenting live on March 20, at 1 PM ET. As Victoria just mentioned, you can also earn CEU credits from AHIMA for this webinar. Thank you again, Victoria.
Victoria: Thank you, Nancy.
Nancy: And thank you all for joining us today 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.
