Outpatient CDI programs can have real impact with risk adjustment and Hierarchical Condition Categories (HCCs). An important component of the HCC risk adjustment model is accurate and appropriate HCC capture, representing a patient’s disease burden year over year.

HCCs reflect hierarchies within related disease categories. A patient can have multiple HCC categories assigned, and each category, along with patient demographics, is factored into the patient’s overall risk adjustment factor (RAF) score.

The higher the RAF score, the sicker the patient. On the upcoming edition of Talk Ten Tuesdays, we’ll will cover the basics of HCCs and what steps to take in order to begin your outpatient CDI program with a focus on these factors. Broadcast Special Guest Colleen Deighan will also conduct a Talk Ten Tuesdays Listener Survey on this topic.

The live broadcast will also feature these other segments:

• The Coding Report: In keeping with the broadcast’s theme, Laurie Johnson will report on the new psychiatric codes for fiscal year 2022.
• Tuesday Focus: CMS Resumes Targeted Probe-and-Educate Program: Nationally recognized professional, coder, auditor, and educator Terry A. Fletcher will return to the broadcast to report on the resumption of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Targeted Probe-and-Educate (TPE) program, which was delayed in response to the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) in March 2020. CMS has given the Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) the go-ahead to resume paused TPE reviews and initiate new reviews.
• Special Report: CMS One-Year Extension: Susan Gatehouse, founder and president of Axea Solutions, will report on the CMS one-year extension of New Technology Add-on Payments (NTAPs) for 13 technologies for which the payments otherwise would have discontinued beginning in 2022.
• News Desk: Timothy Powell, compliance expert and ICD10monitor national correspondent, will anchor the Talk Ten Tuesdays News Desk.
• TalkBack: Erica Remer, MD, founder and president of Erica Remer, MD, Inc., and Talk Ten Tuesdays co-host, will report on a subject that has caught her attention during her popular segment.