Video: Tips for Disease Burden Capture

Chronic conditions present challenges, not only from a diagnosis and treatment perspective, but also from a documentation standpoint. Accurate disease burden capture of your patients’ complete health status can increase the quality of care that they receive today and into the future.

To help you and your team fully and accurately document patients’ chronic conditions, the Revenue Program Management (RPM) team has released a series of brief, informative videos — in collaboration with Dr. Frank Colangelo, an internist and primary care physician — on the following topics:

    Authorization
  • Diabetes
  • Congestive Heart Failure (CHF)
  • Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)
  • Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)
  • Vascular Disease
  • Dementia
  • Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD)
  • Senile Purpura
  • Chronic Conditions – Commonly Missed Diagnoses

“These videos share tips on the importance of accurate and detailed documentation and how it supports patient care and appropriate government reimbursement,” said Olga Ziegler, Vice President of RPM for Highmark.

“Although medical record documentation and coding are an integral part of health care,” continued Ziegler, “the appropriate way to code is not typically taught in medical school.”

Featuring Dr. Colangelo, the videos provide a list of “dos and don’ts” for achieving accurate disease burden capture.

For example, in the COPD video , Dr. Colangelo advises:

Don’t equate and substitute COPD with “asthma,” “bronchospasm,” “wheezing,” “shortness of breath.” These conditions — although carrying various degrees of symptomatic similarities with COPD or emphysema — are not specific, and do not equate to COPD, emphysema, or chronic obstructive bronchitis.

In the dementia video , Dr. Colangelo shares these recommendations:

Evaluate patients for early dementia with memory loss that affects day-to-day activities, disorientation to time or place, impaired judgment and abstract thinking, problems with language, changes in mood or behavior, difficulty performing familiar tasks, or cognitive impairment… Capture dementia with any behavioral issues such as anxiety, mood disturbance, wandering, anger, combativeness, restlessness, rocking, etc.

The videos are posted on the Provider Resource Center (PRC), no login required to access. Select EDUCATION/MANUALS from the left menu and then click Coding Education/HCC University.

 

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