Types of Medical Coding Audits

Medical coding audits ensure the accuracy, completeness, and compliance of coding procedures in a healthcare setting. They play a vital role in protecting against fraudulent practices and in maintaining the integrity of healthcare data. There are several types of medical coding audits, and they generally fall under two umbrellas – compliance audits and focused audits.

In the past five years, HIA has seen a steady increase in focused audits:

Our most sought-after focused audits include:

• Onboarding and Education
• Mortality
• Quality Measures
• CDI
• Denials
• Revenue Integrity
• Service Specific

This shift can be attributed to many factors, including:

• Ever Increasing Emphasis on Accurate Reimbursement: Medical coding audits primarily focus on ensuring accurate coding and documentation to support appropriate reimbursement for healthcare services. With the complexity of coding systems like ICD-10 and CPT, healthcare organizations are recognizing the need for targeted audits to identify coding errors, documentation deficiencies, and potential revenue leakage.
• Cost Efficiency: Focused medical coding audits are generally more cost-effective compared to comprehensive compliance audits that cover a wide range of regulatory requirements. By targeting specific areas such as high-volume services, high-risk procedures, or problematic coding patterns, healthcare organizations can allocate their auditing resources more efficiently.
• Specificity and Expertise: Focused medical coding audits allow organizations to concentrate on specific coding areas or specialties where they might have identified higher risks. This approach enables them to develop specialized expertise in those areas and address coding and documentation issues more effectively.
• Compliance Programs Maturity: Many healthcare organizations have developed robust compliance programs that include ongoing monitoring and auditing activities. As these programs evolve, organizations often shift their focus from broad compliance audits to more targeted audits that provide actionable insights and drive meaningful improvements in coding accuracy and documentation.
• Data Analytics and Technology Advancements: The availability of advanced data analytics tools and technologies has made it easier to identify patterns, outliers, and potential coding discrepancies within large datasets. Focused medical coding audits leverage these tools to analyze claims data, coding patterns, and other relevant information, enabling organizations to identify and address specific areas of concern more efficiently. Learn more about our data analytics platform, Atom Audit.
  

It's worth noting that while focused medical coding audits have gained prominence, compliance audits still play a crucial role in ensuring overall adherence to regulatory requirements and best practices in healthcare organizations. Both types of audits serve different purposes and can be complementary in assessing and improving coding accuracy, documentation quality, and compliance standards.

Since 1992, HIA has been the leading provider of compliance audits, coding support services and clinical documentation audit services for hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers, physician groups and other healthcare entities. HIA offers PRN support as well as total outsource support.