Articles by Debi Primeau
Debi is a well respected opinion leader in the industry. Read her published articles in full by clicking the links:
- Flipping the script on denial management What’s in a word? When that word is “denial,” it is capable of generating a greatdeal of negative energy, especially for health system executives in key pain-point positions—like CFOs and revenue cycle directors. Instead of merely managing and tolerating denials as a necessary evil, progressive organizations prevent them from ever occurring. In this way, rational CFOs flip the script on payer denials—viewing them as an opportunity to learn, improve and minimize future revenue risk … click here to continue
- Lessons Learned During a Coding Reorganization Project A large integrated delivery system recently went through a coding reorganization project. The initial reorganization had realigned the HIM organization, establishing regional and local medical center HIM operations and coding leadership structures. Each HIM operations leader had a dual reporting relationship, reporting both to their respective regional director as well as the CFO(s) of the local hospital(s) for which they were responsible for managing. The coding leaders were transitioned to a direct regional reporting … click here to continue
- Transforming Healthcare through API Governance These days, digital information is gold. This is especially true in healthcare, where organizations strategically use health information to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance the safety and quality of patient care. The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) defines information governance “as an organization-wide framework for managing information throughout its lifecycle and supporting the organization’s strategy, operations, regulatory, legal, risk, and environmental requirements.” … click here to continue
- Lessons Learned During EHR Downtime In May 2016, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) published ONC Data Brief 35, which reported 96 percent of U.S. non-Federal acute care hospitals were in possession of a certified EHR.i Two months later, in July 2016, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) issued a report on its study regarding contingency plans for EHRs. OIG surveyed 400 hospitals that had received Medicare incentive payments for a certified EHR as of September 2014.ii The hospitals were asked about written EHR contingency plans in relation to the following four HIPAA requirements … click here to continue
- Using risk assessments to mitigate data breaches in ASCs Nationally, an average of one healthcare organization per day is experiencing a data breach.As of November 21, 2017, 264 data breaches affecting at least 4.4 million patients have been reported to the US Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR)i. The breaches affected physician and dental practices, hospitals, insurers, medical equipment suppliers and health systems.There have been so many … click here to continue
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Published in the Journal of AHIMA
Coding Centralization Lessons Learned During a Reorganization Project
A large integrated delivery system recently went through a coding reorganization project. The initial reorganization had realigned the health information management (HIM) organization, establishing regional and local medical center HIM operations and coding leadership structures. Click here to continue
