ACDIS Preview

Conference Tailors Education to CDI Professionals

By Heather Hogstrom

San Antonio will be hosting the Association of Clinical Documentation Improvement Specialists’ (ACDIS) 8th Annual Conference May 19-21, with preconference sessions May 17-18. Clinical documentation improvement (CDI) professionals, including CDI specialists and directors, coding compliance specialists and directors, HIM directors, inpatient coders, coding supervisors, and case management directors, will find relevant sessions to enhance their CDI programs.

The two-day preconference boot camps will cover the Physician Advisor’s Role in CDI, which will start with a regulatory and coding update and then allow attendees to choose between Physician Advisor 101 or Multihospital Management; ICD-10 for CDI, which was developed for CDI specialists rather than coders to provide in-depth education on ICD-10-CM documentation requirements; and CDI and Quality: Advancing CDI, which will provide strategies for achieving optimal reimbursement and education on how documentation and code assignment affect the revenue cycle.

The main conference’s sessions are divided into four tracks: Management and Leadership; Clinical and Coding; Quality and Regulatory Initiatives; and Innovative CDI. Management and Leadership will cover topics such as physician engagement, EHR documentation, and orienting new clinical documentation specialists. Clinical and Coding will include sessions such as the Coding Clinic update for CDI, preparing surgeons for ICD-10-PCS documentation requirements, and how quality factors affect hospital payments. Quality and Regulatory Initiatives will feature risk adjustment, using reviews to identify patient safety indicators, and a panel session on quality and CDI. Innovative CDI will provide education on pediatric, outpatient, and postacute CDI as well as physician advisor programs and training physicians in a simulation lab.

The ACDIS conference has been approved for 13 CEUs toward fulfilling Certified Clinical Documentation Specialist (CCDS) certification requirements, and there will also be an opportunity to take the CCDS exam on May 21 after the conference closes.

New for this year, attendees can download an interactive conference app that features program materials, a session planner, audience polls, a real-time activity feed, and more. For more information and to register, visit www.hcpro.com/acdis.

— Heather Hogstrom is an editorial assistant at For The Record.