In the news
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DecisionHealth® and Coding StrategiesSM Combine Forces to Deliver the Most Comprehensive Set of Health Care Online Training for Physician Practices
WASHINGTON, DC (August 17, 2011) – DecisionHealth, the leading source for health care news, analysis and instructional guidance, announced today a partnership with Coding Strategies, the leading physician specialty coding assessment and education provider, to expand its online training offerings for physician practice managers, clinicians and administrative staff.
The partnership enables DecisionHealth to offer additional libraries to their expanding catalog of courses. New libraries will include:
- Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology
- Emergency Medicine
- Medical Oncology
- Pathology
“Offering our online training courses to DecisionHealth’s customers is the logical next step in allowing more customers in the physician practice market full access the most up-to-date training available,” says Melody Mulaik, President of Coding Strategies. “It’s a win-win for each of us to ensure proper compliance and payment for physician services rendered.”
“Meeting the needs of health care professionals continues to be our top priority. We understand that coding and billing competency is top of mind in the ever-changing economic and political climate where it’s essential to earn and keep every dollar to which you are legally entitled,” says Corinne Kuypers-Denlinger, Vice President of DecisionHealth. “I’m excited to partner with Coding Strategies to round out a more complete course offering.”
Building on a history as the leading provider of highly rated live and audio training, DecisionHealth offers course catalogues for home health and physician office professionals. Each course targets the competencies critical to accurate documentation, coding and/or billing through a mix of instructional information (including supplemental source references) and interactive exercises that prompt the learner to apply their key learning points. Throughout all DecisionHealth courses, the learner will find true-to-life patient scenarios and practice the skills required to solve day-to-day reimbursement challenges.
As the leader in reimbursement news, analysis and guidance, as well as the provider of home health and specialty professional certification offered through the Board of Medical Specialty Coding & Compliance, DecisionHealth is uniquely positioned to target competency deficiencies that plague health care providers and cause unintended reimbursement errors. In addition, all courses were created in collaboration with subject matter experts, and reviewed by certified professionals.
For relevance, physician courses are offered either as part of specialty-specific curriculums or as stand-alone courses for targeted training. Other specialty specific courses currently being offered are Radiation Oncology, Pain Management and Invasive Cardiology. And, most DecisionHealth courses carry pre-approved CEUs for easy compliance with maintenance of annual certification mandates.
With an emphasis on competency development, all DecisionHealth courses are available to students for a period of 90 days and require completion of a final assessment. Learners must earn a passing grade of 85% or higher on the final course assessment in order to receive a certificate of completion and CEUs. This assures employers that their investment in training has its intended results of improved coding and billing productivity, improved documentation accuracy and, where appropriate, increased billing opportunity.
About Coding Strategies: Headquartered in Powder Springs, Ga., Coding Strategies (CSI) has been providing auditing, education, reference tools and consulting services to the health care industry for over a decade. The company is the leader in providing coding and compliance support, serving a wide range of healthcare organizations nationwide. CSI provides online training for specialty-specific outpatient coding. Course authors are nationally recognized consultants have backgrounds in coding, compliance, insurance, finance, billing, operations, practice management, etc., and each are published authors in their respective fields. CSI offers physician practices, coding professionals, billing companies, compliance officers and anyone responsible for medical coding with e-learning opportunities for specialty-specific coding. CSI consultants have extensive health care business experience and are the experts at tackling challenges that healthcare professionals face daily, such as operational, clinical, coding, compliance and reimbursement issues. Coding Strategies is also in the forefront in providing educational services and publishing specialty-specific outpatient coding guidance (including, but not limited to, Interventional Radiology, Diagnostic Radiology, Invasive Cardiology, Radiation Oncology, Medical Oncology and much more). For more information, please visit www.codingstrategies.com.
About DecisionHealth: For 25 years, DecisionHealth has served as the industry’s leading source for news, analysis and instructional guidance for nearly 100,000 health care executives, providers and their administrative staffs. DecisionHealth offers a wide range of self-paced online training courses for the outpatient and post-acute market. Each course is created and reviewed by leading health care experts, thus ensuring the concepts reinforced are relevant to solve the market-specific problems that plague coding, clinical and compliance professionals. Most courses are pre-approved for AAPC and BMSC Continuing Education Credits. For more information, please visit www.decisionhealth.com/store.
Contact: Tiffany Jones
Director of Online Learning and Certification
DecisionHealth
1-301-287-2283
tjones@decisionhealth.com
DecisionHealth’s Board of Medical Specialty Coding & Compliance announces new Home Care Clinical Specialist-OASIS (HCS-O) certification
WASHINGTON, DC (April 7, 2011) – The Board of Medical Specialty Coding & Compliance (BMSC) now offers a professional certification in OASIS-C for home health clinicians. The new HCS-O certification assures home health agencies that clinicians are able to conduct a comprehensive patient assessment and accurately complete the OASIS-C form. This leads to improved outcomes, accurate claims submission, and prompt and proper claims payment.
The Home Care Clinical Specialist-OASIS certification is issued by the same accrediting body that created the gold standard in home health coding certification: the Home Care Coding Specialist-Diagnosis (HCS-D).
The new HCS-O designation is granted only to clinicians who have demonstrated mastery of the clinical skills and judgment necessary to assess a patient’s condition correctly, and the knowledge to complete an OASIS-C assessment form accurately. Clinicians with HCS-O certification also know to document medical necessity, make connections between OASIS-C, documentation and coding, and measure and report outcomes.
“We’re very excited to bring this new credential to home health clinicians looking to demonstrate their OASIS-C proficiency,” says Corinne Kuypers-Denlinger, Vice President of DecisionHealth. “It’s a win-win for them and their agencies, which are looking to ensure excellence in patient care through the highest levels of OASIS-C assessment capabilities.”
The HCS-O examination is based on the following areas of competency: 1) Standard conventions and how OASIS works with payment systems; 2) Clinical case-mix items; 3) Wounds case-mix items; 4) Functional case-mix items; 5) Diagnosis coding rules; and, 6) Process measures (screening questions).
Agencies familiar with the OASIS-C certifications from other organizations will find the HCS-O exam from the Board of Medical Specialty Coding more rigorous. Exams cover more than just basic CMS guidelines to include application of that knowledge to the kind of complex, multi-faceted assessments and plans of care scenarios that clinicians regularly encounter in the field. Also, the credential maintenance cycle requires clinicians keep skills up-to-date through annual renewal or recertification.
Not only does the new HCS-O certification hold to higher standards, but it also is more cost-effective than less rigorous certifications. Comparisons will show that BMSC offers favorable pricing for first attempts on the test, as well as complementary second chances for those who fail to qualify on the first effort.
Finally, clinicians preparing to take the HCS-O exam will find a wealth of resources available through a partnership with DecisionHealth to provide the following resources, including…
- The BMSC Study Guide for HCS-O Certification Examination 2011 shows clinicians which OASIS-C competencies they need to focus on as they prepare for the HCS-O certification exam. Authored by the experts who wrote the exam, the study guide contains important OASIS assessment tips, practice questions and an exam outline.
- The OASIS-C Practice & Answer Book contains more than 100 real-life home health patient scenarios covering every item on the OASIS-C form. It’s an indispensable guide for understanding how to complete OASIS-C assessments accurately.
- The OASIS-C Case-Mix Library is a set of 5 self-paced online courses from which clinicians can pick and choose as needed. From basic OASIS-C introduction to advanced wound case mix details, this library helps clinicians with in-depth instruction on any OASIS-C case-mix challenge they have.
These and more than a dozen other supporting products can be found in the DecisionHealth store at store.decisionhealth.com by entering “OASIS-C” in the keyword search box.
Contact: Tiffany Jones
Director of Online Learning and Certification
Board of Medical Specialty Coding & Compliance/DecisionHealth
1-301-287-2283
tjones@medicalspecialtycoding.com