All Entries Tagged With: "CDI Talk"

Talk the CDI Talk

Join the CDI discussion

I don’t know how many of you subscribe to CDI Talk, but I think you’re missing out if you’re not subscribed. CDI Talk is an active talk group of ACDIS members and generates a lot of great discussion. It’s a good way to keep updated on the issues affecting CDI programs around the nation, and I would love to have you weigh in on the conversations. Signing up is easy (and free with ACDIS membership):

• Sign in to the ACDIS Web site (www.cdiassociation.com) with your password and username
• Go to our CDI Talk page, here: http://www.hcpro.com/acdis/cdi_talk.cfm
• Click the gray “subscribe button”
• Post messages by using the “create new message” button, or by sending a message to cdi_talk@hcprotalk.com.

CDI Talk tip: Archives offer topic search option

CDI Talk offers another way to network.

Many of you are familiar with how talk groups operate. In general, if you are a member of an organization you can subscribe to its talk group. This allows you to pose a question to the other subscribers or members of the group. If a member knows the answer or wants to respond to the conversation at hand they can do so.

So, if you are confused about a new regulatory requirement, wondering how others are improving physician relationships and communication at their facilities, want to bounce some ideas off of a peer, or have a shared conversation about professional development, CDI Talk is a helpful place.

When you sign up for the talk group you can chose to receive messages individually, as submitted by members, or you can chose to receive a summary of the daily discussions (a “daily digest”). While both of these options are useful they both have their drawbacks—individual messages can clog up your e-mail inbox and a daily digest can be difficult to read if there are multiple discussion threads.

If you’re signed up for CDI Talk, however, you also have access to the Talk Group Archives. The best thing about the archives is that they are fully searchable by keyword. But you can also browse the message list and sort by the author of the post, the number of responses the post generated, the topic, and/or the date.  Personally, I find this the most useful method to stay connected and informed. Usually, on Friday mornings I carve out about 15-20 minutes of my day to scroll through the list from the week.  If there’s a topic I’m interested in, I click on the subject line and open the string of responses to learn more and join the conversation.

New and seasoned CDI specialists benefit from the opportunity to talk regularly via e-mail with their peers on CDI Talk.  Over the years, generous professionals have shared tips and tricks, best practices and benchmarking data through this forum.

It’s just one more way ACDIS helps you stay connected. If you’re not a member, what are you waiting for? The $129 membership more than pays for itself in product discounts, useful tools, quarterly conference calls with the advisory board, the newsletter. . . okay, I’ll stop bragging. . . If you’re interested, contact ACDIS member relations at 800/650-6787 or e-mail customerservice@cdiassociation.com, or visit HCMarketplace.com.

Every Day You Write the Book

Have you heard that Elvis Costelo song Every Day I Write the Book? It compares a couple’s love story with the imagined characters of a romance novel.

While the story of ACDIS hardly mirrors a sordid affair, we certainly have started to write the proverbial book of the association. Which brings me to the point of my pun, we need your “chapters” to fill our “pages”. By which I simply mean that we’re stepping up our search for those starting local CDI chapters.

But getting to the point. . .you might have noticed this emphasis in a few places around the ACDIS Web site-there’s been a bit of chatter on CDI Talk, in the next issue of the CDI Journal we’re featuring a photo of the New England chapter, and Director Brian Murphy blogged about meeting the New England members during that group’s inaugural get-together.

If you are currently a member of a local group of CDI professionals we’d love to hear from you. Personally, I’d like to know how your group came to be, how long you’ve been around, and what difficulties you’ve managed to overcome since banding together. If you are interested in creating a local group of CDI professionals or hosting a local meeting of your own, we’d love to hear from you, too. We’re in the process of compiling a list of interested ACDIS members and existing state and regional chapters to increase your ability to network and learn from each other.

Send me an e-mail at mvarnavas@cdiassociation.com. I look forward to meeting you.

Melissa

CDI Talk: When in Doubt, Call a Friend

If you haven’t joined in the discussions taking place on “CDI Talk” you’re missing out on a wealth of information.  Some of the recent discussion topics (to name only a few) have been: query forms, BMI,  querying for decubitus ulcers, POA, RACs, to name just a few.

You don’t have to be an expert to join in; in fact, questions from new Documentation Specialists are often trigger the most lively discussions!  One topic from 3/26 titled “What DRG would you assign” received 25 responses!  This topic was a great example of how CDIS see situations differently and the supporting arguments presented were well thought out and detailed. [more]