90 percent Report CDI Empowered Revenue

At least $1.5 million were gained by most of the hospitals in healthcare revenue after clinical documentation improvement (CDI) implementation, a Black Book survey discovered.
In accordance to Black Book Market Research, almost 90% of hospitals with 150 or more beds and outsourced clinical documentation functions recognized at least $1.5 million in suitable healthcare revenue and claims reimbursement following clinical documentation improvement (CDI) implementation.

Healthcare revenue and claims reimbursement amounts were boosted by hospitals through clinical documentation improvement projects, Black Book claimed
Doug Brown, the Managing Partner at Black Book, “CDI solutions are the crucial link in ensuring full and timelier reimbursements from insurers and payers, as well as ignoring expensive penalties for non-compliance, therefore hospital chief financial officers have become the greatest advocates for outsourced end-to-end coding.”
The 907 healthcare leaders’ survey discovered that hospitals boosted quality of care and the agency’s bottom line by selecting to use CDI programs after the ICD-10 transition. Almost, 85% of hospitals experienced quality improvements and case mix index increases after CDI implementation.
In accordance to the majority of hospital financial officers (87%), the case mix index improvement was the greatest motivator for CDI adoption due to its potential to increase healthcare revenue and optimize high-value specialist utilization
CDI implementation was also reviewed by healthcare leaders as an effective way to shift more payments to value-based reimbursement. Over 88% of hospital and physician financial executives stated that they were researching vendor solutions for linking care with analytics and results to support the shift to healthcare consumerism and value-based reimbursement models.
Brown said, “Due to this increased patient engagement, the requirement for proper clinical documentation improvement driving quality outcome scores has never been more important. At the similar time, the shift in the settings of care challenges financial leaders who’re handling a far more complicated enigma centered on optimizing the revenue cycle and reimbursements.”
In accordance to the healthcare leaders’ survey, they were moving CDI implementation higher on their hospital priority lists due to the potential of project to improve quality, outcomes, and healthcare revenue. Nearly, 76% of hospitals that haven’t adopted CDI programs stated that CDI has risen to the top of 2017 budget priority lists, particularly since ICD-10 implementation is over.
The healthcare leaders at hospitals without CDI programs plan to research outsourced end-to-end coding and coding software solutions, researchers added.
For community and huge hospitals, though, more executives are seeking outsourced CDI services or have already implemented outsourced solutions. Almost half of hospitals with over 200 beds (47%) presently outsource CDI functions, like auditing, reviewing, and programming.
The report claimed that, since the launch date of ICD-10, several community and large hospitals contracting for external CDI solutions approximately doubled.
In accordance to researchers, more healthcare leaders are also seeking replacements for CDI and coding solutions implemented prior to the ICD-10 transition. Nearly 40% of hospitals and physician groups that presently outsource CDI and coding are considering switching to a second or third generation CDI vendor.
Healthcare leaders are emphasizing for CDI and coding solutions replacement due to the physician acquisitions and EHR replacement projects, which have reportedly weakened the sustainability or effectiveness of existing CDI programming software and services.
As a result, 94% of hospitals using CDI solutions that haven’t had a positive affect or those seeing ineffective coding results anticipate partnering with a CDI vendor to assist them with post-ICD-10 effects in the year of 2017.
For those looking to execute or replace CDI solutions, the survey also named the leading vendors in CDI services. In accordance to the survey, the top vendor was Nuance Communications with the greatest client experience and customer satisfaction scores. Nuance Communications also outperformed other vendors in abstraction, content management and speech recognition.
Other high ranking CDI vendors involved Optum360, M*Modal, nThrive, Navicure, FastChart, Streamline and 3M Health Information.
For outsourced CDI solutions, Optum360 ranked 1st in outsourced computer assisted coding, while nThrive/Precyse gained top outsourced transcription services.