All Entries Tagged With: "certification"
Your CCDS isn’t tied to your ACDIS membership
I’ve been reaching out to people whose CCDS credential expired in 2011. Most of these folks are among the first who
I wonder who else will be wearing a purple hat in San Diego.
earned the credential, and knowing how hard they worked to earn it, we hate to see them lose it.
In the course of chatting with people, a few were confused about the relationship between their CCDS credential and their ACDIS membership. They thought that renewing their ACDIS membership each year automatically translated to the CCDS credential.
One has nothing to do with the other. You become an ACDIS member when you pay the membership fee. There is no exam required.
The CCDS credential has strict educational training and experience requirements. Additionally, those who wish to earn the credential must pay a fee, pass an exam, and then renew the credential every two year by submitting proof of 20 continuing education credits and paying a renewal fee.
To summarize:
- Anyone can join ACDIS
- ACDIS members may be qualified to take the CCDS exam
- CCDS holders may be ACDIS members
(That list reminds me of those awful logic problems from middle school. Remember those? Here’s one: Penny, Melissa, and Brian went to the ACDIS Conference, one by plane, one by train, and one on horseback. One carried a suitcase, one carried a newspaper, and one carried a laptop. Who wore the purple hat?)
You don’t need to be an ACDIS member to hold the CCDS. Plenty of stuff is free on the ACDIS site, like this blog. So, why join ACDIS?
(Here comes “the pitch”). Your ACDIS membership connects you on a deeper level with other CDI professionals, products, and services. You get:
- Free participation in quarterly conference calls and in the ACDIS e-mail group CDI Talk
- Free full access to the ACDIS web site, including the online Forms & Tools Library full of documents you can download and customize, and archives of featured articles
- A free subscription to the quarterly electronic CDI Journal
- Free access to the ACDIS elearning library for online courses that offer CDI, coding, and case management continuing education credits
- Member-only discounts for the annual ACDIS conference, CDI products, and the CCDS exam and/or re-certification
ACDIS membership is well-priced at $129 a year. (Members of local ACDIS chapters receive a discount on National membership which brings that cost to under $100. Talk to your local chapter leaders to learn more. Take advantage of the discounts and it will more than pay for itself every year. For instance, you can earn free CEUs for your CCDS and save $100 on the CCDS renewal fee. (End of “the pitch”.)
When does your CCDS expire? Are you ready with at least 20 CEUs? Got a renewal question? E-mail me at prichards@cdiassociation.com. I’m here to help.
P.S.
I’ll be the one in San Diego in the purple hat.
2012 ACDIS Conference includes new initiatives
Join us in beautiful San Diego for the 5th Annual ACDIS Conference.The 2012 5th Annual ACDIS Conference will be more exciting than ever, offering two days and three tracks of sessions on the latest trends and cutting-edge techniques to build, improve, and enhance CDI programs. We strongly recommend early registration to save more than $200. Also if you are planning to stay through the weekend, hotel rooms quickly sell out, so we encourage you finalize your plans as soon as possible.
You will gain a deeper understanding of the new coding and documentation requirements under ICD-10, strengthen your medical records for RAC review, and learn how to bring new initiatives like observation and pediatrics to your program when you attend this year’s Annual ACDIS Conference in San Diego, May 11-12. Sessions on shock and kidney disease and cardiac diagnoses will deepen your understanding of pathophysiology and open up new query opportunities.
Return to your organization recharged and with a new level of proficiency for continued CDI success.
Visit the web site for new detailed session descriptions and faculty information.
What’s new at the 2012 conference
- Exciting new keynote speaker Dr. Janet Lapp speaks on “Change: The Choice is Ours”
- DOJ attorney discusses Medicare claims recoupment case
- More sessions than ever, including breakouts on neonatal and pregnancy reviews, at-home work arrangements, career ladders, and ICD-10
- Tracks on compliance, and on quality and its relationship to CDI
Join us for two exciting pre-conference events
The Physician Advisor’s Role in CDI: A Collaborative Approach for Success | May 8-9, 2012. Participants found this session was so valuable during the 2011 conference they asked us to expand it to two days. This seminar provides in-depth coverage of the essential functions of the physician advisor and his or her successful integration with the clinical documentation improvement (CDI) department. Participants will walk away with a thorough grounding in the goals and objectives of a CDI program, definitions of problematic terms in ICD-9 and ICD-10 and solutions for to resolve coding vs. clinical clashes, and strategies to promote physician engagement. Click here for more information or to register now.
ICD-10 for CDI Boot Camp | May 8-9, 2012. This intensive two-day course was developed especially for CDI specialists to provide an introduction to the fundamentals of ICD-10 coding. You’ll learn the differences between ICD-9 and ICD-10 codes, understand major changes to official coding guidelines, and develop the confidence to tackle the new system and query physicians for the greater specificity in documentation that the ICD-10 code set requires. Our expert faculty will review the codes and provide practical examples for hands-on learning. Click here for more information or to register now.
Don’t forget about the CCDS Exam
Certified Clinical Documentation Specialist (CCDS) Exam | May 12, 2012. The CCDS credential is the recognized professional certification for CDI specialists. A paper-and-pencil administration of the exam will be held Saturday, May 12, 2012 in San Diego. Exams are also held at computerized testing centers nationwide. Candidates who wish to take the exam must meet general requirements and one of four specified routes. You can learn more about prerequisites or apply online at www.cdiassociation.com/certification.
We’re looking forward to seeing you in San Diego!
What constitutes a CCDS continuing education unit?
I had some messages in my inbox the other day from holders of the Certified Clinical Documentation Specialist (CCDS) credential wondering what constitutes a CCDS continuing education unit (CEU). They asked:
- What does it mean that I need 20 CCDS CEUs to recertify?
In order to maintain your CCDS credential you must maintain ongoing continuing education credits. Tracking your CE efforts is your responsibility.
- Do CEUs need to pertain to the field of clinical documentation or are CEUs for nursing re licensing acceptable?
- Can we use all of our coding and training CEUs toward our CCDS?
- We have a cancer conference at our facility twice a month. Would these sessions count toward our CCDS?
CCDS CEUs must be relevant to clinical documentation improvement. Here is a list of activities that qualify for CEUs toward CCDS re certification (this document is available on the ACDIS website):
- Annual ACDIS conference (one CEU for each hour of participation)
- Other related allied health conferences (e.g., nursing, case management, etc.) (one CEU for each hour of participation)
- Other related association conferences (e.g., AHIMA, AAPC, etc.) (one CEU for each hour of participation)
- Audio conferences/Webinars/e‐learning courses relevant to the CDI profession or hospital inpatient coding/documentation (one CEU for each hour of participation)
- CMS‐sponsored webinars and/or workshops, either from CMS national events or Medicare Administrative Contractors (one CEU for each hour of participation)
- Attending college courses for credit or degrees. (15 CEUs for each semester credit, 10 CEUs for each quarter credit)
- Presenting seminars/speaking engagements (two CEUs for each half hour of presentation time)
- Nursing CEUs: ACDIS will honor 1‐for‐1 CEUs relevant to clinical (disease or diagnosis) education or documentation improvement
- CME credit: ACDIS will honor 1‐for‐1 CEUs for any live event offering CME credit
- Participating in the ACDIS CDI Work Group or ACDIS committees (number of CEUs to be determined based on length of participation)
Ask for CCDE CEUs at other learning opportunities
If you plan to attend a training that doesn’t specifically state it offers CCDS credits or if the program doesn’t fit into the parameters listed above as a qualified activity, ask the program sponsor to apply for CCDS CEUs. The process is painless and the cost is minimal. Click here to download the application.
The entity that provides the training should provide you with a certificate or other notice that your participation earned you a specific number of CCDS credits. It is up to you to keep track of which programs you have attended and to maintain a file of your certificates in case you are audited.
ACDIS Local Chapters may apply for CEUs at no cost.
Many ACDIS local chapters offer CCDS CEUs for their programs. If you have a local chapter, take advantage of these opportunities. If your local chapter doesn’t offer CCDS CEUs, ask about them. Better yet, offer to help chapter leadership by offering to handle the application process.
And if you don’t have a local chapter… reach out to ACDIS Associate Director Melissa Varnavas to talk about getting one started near you!
Additions made to the CCDS exam instruction handbook
Are you planning to take the CCDS exam? We made some revisions to the Certified Clinical
If you are thinking about taking the CCDS exam the first step to take is to review the CCDS Candidate Handbook.
Documentation Specialist Candidate Handbook, which include sections for appeals and disciplinary policies as well as:
- Updates to the list of Advisory Board members
- Updates to addresses and contact information for the ACDIS office
- Clarification regarding the permitted use of handwritten notes in the margins of allowable exam resources
No eligibility changes
Perhaps most important for you to know is that we have NOT changed the eligibility requirements. There are four routes you can take for eligibility and all require a combination of work experience and successful completion of formal educational training.
Click here to download a copy of the CCDS Candidate Handbook.
Once you receive notice of your eligibility to take the exam, you can schedule to take the exam at your convenience at a location of your choosing.
The exam is also given annually at the ACDIS Conference. Details about how to schedule your exam at the 2012 Conference in San Diego (May 10-11) will be published on the ACDIS website shortly. For more information about the conference, visit the conference web page.
ACDIS Introductions: Member Services Specialist Penny Richards
ACDIS Member Services Specialist Penny Richards and her daughter PJ clearly know how to have fun.
Hello! I’m Penny Richards the new ACDIS Member Services Specialist. I’m thrilled to be working with ACDIS Director Brian Murphy and Associate Director Melissa Varnavas in this very exciting and growing segment of the healthcare industry.
In this role, I will be your primary contact for membership questions. Among my responsibilities are managing the certification and recertification processes, spot auditing applications (be sure you have all your back up paperwork and continue education certificates), maintaining certification lists, processing delivery of certificates and pins, answering the growing number of employer inquiries about certification verification… and on and on.
I’ll be writing for the ACDIS Blog, posting to Facebook and hopefully bringing ACDIS to Twitter in the near future. I am certainly going to be busy!
I joined HCPro in 2000, in the editorial department writing newsletters dedicated to the outpatient and ambulatory center arenas. In 2002 I transferred to the marketing department and worked to help get the word out about all the great products HCPro created for health information management and revenue cycle professionals. And I was there when ACDIS launched and wrote almost every piece of ACDIS marketing you may have received in your e-mail or snail-mail box.
Now, I’m back in editorial and thrilled to be a member of the ACDIS team.
What more can I tell you about myself? Before coming to HCPro, I spent 10 years as a mild mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper doing local and features reporting and won a New England Press Association Award for history reporting in 2000. I published a book about my “sally” with breast cancer in 2007, and write two personal blogs.
I’m an independent voter, first-born who has trouble saying “No”, and would run away with the James Bond-era Sean Connery (my husband of 36 years is very patient with this statement). I am very fond of dirty vodka martinis and will clean the kitchen if you’ll cook.
I’m a Justice of the Peace in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (many states allow a one-day-one-marriage license, so I can perform weddings out of state… give me a call!) as well as a Notary Public and a hospice volunteer. I stay busy but not so much that I can’t sneak away to Maine for occasional “Attitude Adjustment Days.”
Please drop me a line if I can be of assistance and look for me on Facebook. I’m excited to be a member of the ACDIS team and look forward to working with you!
Congratulations to our new group of CCDS credentialees
Congratulations are due for our new group of recipients of the CCDS credential. These professionals met the requirements for the CCDS
Congratulations to the latest batch of CCDS achievers!
certification program and passed the exam in the period between April 2, 2011, and June 30, 2011.
If you recognize one of these names or would like to offer congratulations, please feel free to comment right here on ACDIS blog.
ACDIS will continue to publish lists of new CCDS credential holders on a quarterly basis.
Take care,
Brian
Book Excerpt: Develop consensus for query clinical indicators
The CCDS Study Guide
The easiest way to ensure that CDI specialists submit queries to physicians only when clinically appropriate is through the use of clinical indicators. Clinical indicators are a written set of guidelines based on the most current medical literature that help the CDI specialist determine when a clinical picture is suggestive of a particular diagnosis. Although medicine is both an art and a science, a physician’s diagnosis is generally guided by a patient’s presenting symptoms, physical findings, and the results of diagnostic testing. By understanding the clinical information a physician uses to make a diagnosis, CDI staff members can guarantee their queries are relevant and timely.
Successful CDI programs maintain and regularly update a comprehensive set of clinical guidelines. Usually, the medical staff most closely linked to the condition should vet these clinical guidelines. For example, many facilities have clinical guidelines to help determine types of congestive heart failure, based on recent medical literature and as supported by the cardiology department.
Moreover, the American Hospital Association’s Coding Clinic for ICD-9-CM supports the development of guidelines for querying physicians. It states:
“Facilities can work together with their medical staff to develop facility-specific coding guidelines, which promote complete documentation needed for consistent coding assignment. Additionally, these guidelines can guide the coding professionals as to when they should query physicians for clarification of their documentation. Any guidelines developed must be applied consistently to all records coded. These facility guidelines must not conflict with the Official ICD-9-CM Guidelines for Coding and Reporting developed by the Cooperating Parties and, additionally, they should not be developed to replace the physician documentation needed to support code assignment.”
CDI specialists, as well as HIM professionals, are critical to the integrity and success of these models in their partnership with physicians and other providers toward data quality. Particularly important is the consistent definition of conditions and treatments, documentation in the medical record, and defense of the submitted codes when audited by outside authorities.
What one physician may term a diagnosis may be labeled differently by another physician, which can lead to inconsistent outcomes. What hospital has not had to deal with an external auditor because a condition was not clearly documented in the chart?
Since the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) published its October 2008 guidance “Managing an Effective Query Process” regarding physician query practices, it’s a new ball game about how coders partner with physicians to defend their data integrity.
Editor’s Note: This excerpt was taken from The CCDS Exam Study Guide.
List of CCDS certification holders published
ACDIS is pleased to publish a complete list of CCDS certification holders from May 16, 2009 (the day the certification was launched) through April 1, 2011. The list is sorted by state so that you can see who else from your area is CCDS certified.
If you took the exam after April 1, 2011, don’t worry–we will continue to publish updated lists in the future.
Congratulations to all who possess the certification, and thanks again to our certification committee for all their hard work in making the CCDS certification a reality.
Take care,
Brian
The CCDS credential aims to recognize proficiency in the CDI role
More than 30 people will sit for the paper and pencil administration of the CCDS exam in Orlando Saturday, April 9. Think you've got the experience to earn the credential?
The CDI specialist’s role is complex and multidisciplinary, suitable for clinically knowledgeable professionals who are proficient in analyzing and interpreting medical record documentation and capable of tracking and trending their CDI program goals and objectives.
These professionals possess knowledge of healthcare and coding regulations; and anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, and pathophysiology.
Furthermore, such professionals possess the valuable ability to engage physicians in dialogue and educational efforts regarding how appropriate clinical documentation benefits patient outcomes and the overall well-being of the healthcare system.
Therefore, the Certified Clinical Documentation Specialist (CCDS) credentialing exam content is based on analysis of the activities of CDI specialists in a wide range of settings, hospital sizes, and circumstances.
Through input from ACDIS membership in survey responses and through the research of the advisory board, seven core CDI competencies were identified:
- Healthcare regulations, reimbursement, and documentation requirements related to the inpatient prospective payment system (IPPS)
- Anatomy and physiology, pathophysiology, pharmacology, and medical terminology
- Medical record documentation
- Healthcare facility CDI program analysis
- Communication skills
- ICD-9-CM Official Guidelines for Coding and Reporting
- Professionalism, ethics, and compliance
Because ACDIS developed the CCDS credential to recognize individuals with a proven ability to work as CDI specialists, candidates for the CCDS designation are required to have at least one year of experience in the profession. Additionally, candidates must have some college-level education. Successful candidates must achieve a passing score on the certification examination, which tests the candidate’s ability to abide by documentation and coding regulations and apply his or her experience and knowledge to typical scenarios that clinical documentation specialists encounter in their profession.
Candidates who wish to take the certification exam must meet all the general requirements and at least four prerequisites; a complete listing is available on the ACDIS website, and on p. 7 of the CCDS Certification Handbookwww.cdiassociation.com/certification).
October edition of the CDI Journal posted
The CDI Journal October issue published 10/1/10
I can’t say that this is the best edition of the CDI Journal yet. If I did, how could I ever follow it with an even better edition come January 2011? I can tell you that this quarter we have more independent voices offering readers a wider variety of perspectives than (maybe ever) before. And I can tell you about the topics I find most interesting in the October issue.
My favorite piece is the one where those who’ve earned their Certified Clinical Documentation Specialist (CCDS) credential offer up their tips for taking the exam. In the article, Jennifer Woodworth, RN, BSN, CCDS, manager of CDI at MultiCare Health System in Tacoma, WA, says that the CCDS credential takes the idea of being a professional CDI specialist to another level–she says it gives the job the weight of a career. According to Woodworth, this new level includes follow-through on data analysis, educational work with coders and physicians, and maintaining an understanding of the latest information regarding regulatory news and coding legislation.
“The CCDS credential and exam makes sure people know these things,” she says. “It is a test to make truly sure that you take what you do seriously and that you’re going to continue to take your profession seriously.”
While Woodworth and others offer some valuable insight to help you make it through the test, Leah Taylor, RN, CCDS, clinical documentation specialist at Iredell Memorial Hospital in Statesville, NC, offers some insight into the difficult experience of having taken the test and failed. Taylor didn’t let that stop her, however. She re-read the materials online and cobbled together a study guide of her own (the CCDS Exam Study Guide had not been published at the time). When she sat for the exam again at a remote testing facility she succeeded and now proudly boasts of her CCDS credential.
In addition to these two articles we’ve also included the complete listing of those who passed the test between December 1, 2009, and September 1, 2010.
Of course, I could tell you more about the other articles in this edition. But you can enjoy them for yourselves online at www.cdiassociation.com. Note the CDI Journal is an online publication for the membership of the Association of Clinical Documentation Improvement Specialists. To view the articles you need to log-in to your account and open the pdf of either the article you want to see or the entire issue.
If you are not an ACDIS member, consider joining the ever-growing community of CDI specialists. We’re more than 2,000 strong.
Here’s the index to all the other great articles you’ll find in this month’s issue.
E-query advice from system vendor, p. 4
Jonathan L. Elion, MD,FACC, explores how new technology leads to better data.
Director’s note, p. 6
Nearly 90 speakers apply to present at the 2011 ACDIS conference in Orlando.
HCC presents additional opportunity for CDI, p. 7
Gloryanne Bryant, RHIA, RHIT, CCS, CCDS, discusses Medicare Advantage Hierarchical Condition Categories.
Review definitions for acute kidney injury, p. 9
Jon Arnott, MD, CMQ, offers clinical indicators from the National Kidney Foundation.
Surviving the CCDS, p. 11
Get advice on how to master the exam from those who’ve taken it.
Maxim moment, p. 18
Incorporate government initiatives into CDI program initiatives.
Benchmark report, p. 22
More than 300 ACDIS members answer questions about their facility’s ICD-10 preparations.
