Hospital medical coding is an essential part of the medical process, the coder is responsible for seeing that any doctor requests for diagnostic procedures or lab work contains the medical coding that has been adopted as a standard and is recognized and accepted by health insurance companies. The codes appear on the testing requests from the doctor are also used to encode the claims submitted to the insurance provider. The medical coder ensures that the correct standard codes are used so that the lab performs the correct test on blood and that the insurance company can process the claims for payment.
Health information coders can work directly in the doctor’s office, a lab or in a hospital. The codes that are used are universal so the process is not overly difficult but it does take a great deal of attention to detail. Failure on the part of the individual doing hospital medical coding can result in a delay in diagnosing the patient condition as well as rejection or serious delay in payment from the insurance company.
There are many involved in hospital medical coding who are integral components of the lab. This individual reviews requests for lab work that comes from the doctor and makes sure that everything is in perfect order prior to the tests being run. The coder works closely with the lab technicians and the doctors who order the tests, constantly checking and double-checking in the event something does not seem right. This coder is important as the accuracy of the coding will eliminate any delays in payment so the time that is spent to ensure accuracy is time well spent.
From the insurance provider point of view, they too employ medical record coders to make perfectly sure that the codes attached to the claims and correct prior to passing the claim on for further review. Most insurance providers use the same standard codes as are used in the hospital although there are some companies who have an internal coding system which ties into the standard codes by a cross reference list, this difference is to improve the in-house performance of the insurance company and is of no consequence at the hospital level. It is the insurance company coders that can return a claim if the code is incorrect.
Outsourcing the task of hospital medical coding reduces the risk associated with coding errors and improving revenue flow. You are invited to contact DPro Technologies to further discuss how they can help your coding processes.
