All Entries in the "survey" Category

2012 CDI professionals’ salary survey

The 2012 CDI professionals’ salary survey was sent to ACDIS members on Tuesday, January 24. In less than 24 hours more than 400 people participated. In 2008, 132 individuals completed the survey. In 2009, responses doubled to roughly 300. In December of 2010, nearly 900 people responded.

I restate these numbers for two reasons. First, I want to encourage all those working in clinical documentation improvement to participate. The larger the pool of responses, the more valid the data. If you are a CDI specialist who reviews medical records please participate. If you are a CDI manager or CDI program director, please participate. If you are a physician advisor whose primary responsibility is oversight and assistance for CDI efforts at your facility, please participate.

Second, over the past few years these numbers have illustrated an interesting point, one which we have internalized anecdotally; the CDI profession is growing. While that may seem like an obvious observation, there have been discouraging stories from around the country of late about CDI programs being dismantled, their duties coupled with those of case managers or quality improvement, or worse, abandoned altogether.

In speaking with consultants and many of you, we have pondered the reasons as to why some healthcare systems seem to be ramping-up their documentation improvement efforts, hiring upwards of 20 CDI specialists, while others simply turn their back on CDI.

Some suggest that facilities have too many initiatives underway right now; they have too much to worry about, too many people to hire to accomplish other, higher priority tasks. They worry over compliance with HIPAA’s 5010 technology initiative, implementation of computerized physician order systems and electronic health records, never mind ICD-10 preparation and training and the rest of the worries associated with healthcare reform.

Others suggest that the programs that closed did not do a good enough job analyzing their CDI program’s effectiveness and communicating that success to facility managers. (Read the blog posts “Asset or Liability” by Glenn Krauss or “The Importance of Metrics and Goals on Behavior” by Donald A. Butler, among other great information previously shared here.)

“Once the case-mix index stops improving administrators stop seeing the value in the program,” one CDI specialist indicated during a telephone conversation. We commiserated, talked about all the other ways CDI specialists’ efforts affect facility prosperity and discussed the role of CDI programs will play in the onslaught on changes coming to the healthcare landscape.

I believe that despite these “stories” of short-sightedness the profession of CDI truly is growing. For each tale of sorrow, I have heard of program expansion into areas of outpatient and emergency clinical documentation, expansion and collaboration between CDI professionals and other internal departments such as audit preparation and physician education for the coming ICD-10 needs. Now, all I need is the data to back this up.

Please take a minute to participate in this year’s 2012 CDI professionals’ salary survey.

Oh, by the way, the other great thing about the salary survey is that it gives you a benchmark against which you can compare your salary to those performing similar tasks. Does anyone out there think it might be time for a raise?

Here is a sneak peak of what people indicated they earn thus far.

CDI & RAC comments sought for new survey

This year, HCPro will release a white paper that identifies a number of ways to maximize the impact of a clinical documentation improvement (CDI) team on a facility’s RAC process. We value your input and appreciate your time and effort in completing this brief, anonymous, six-question survey. As a thank you, we will be happy to send you a copy of our completed white paper. Upon completing the survey you will have the opportunity to request your free copy.

The link below will take you to the survey’s website; simply click on the link to answer the questions . If the click-through does not work, please cut and paste the URL into the address bar of your browser. To take the short survey, please click here.

ACDIS needs you to participate in the 2010 physician query survey

Do you want to know what elements your peers deem important features of their physician query forms? See the chart below.

Since the 2010 Physician Query Benchmarking Survey launched last week, nearly 300 CDI-related professionals have responded, taking time from their busy days to fill out the 42-question, two-page survey. If you haven’t taken the opportunity to participate I encourage you to do so. We want to hear from you and so do your peers. It is your collective response that helps illustrate common industry best practices regarding the roles and expectations of CDI programs and their staffs. The more people who take the time to respond to the survey, the greater validity the survey results will hold.

Furthermore, since the publication of the 2009 survey many changes in the CDI profession have taken place: AHIMA released special guidance for CDI programs, recovery audit contracts began medical necessity reviews, and more facilities have begun to implement electronic query systems. This year’s survey aims to gather information about how CDI query practices have changed in light of these developments. Participate now and look for an analysis of the results on the ACDIS website in January.