AHIMA Joins with Artifact Health to Help Standardize CDI Query Workflow

“It’s the perfect alliance—Artifact makes it easy for physicians to respond to queries quickly, and AHIMA ensures query template information provided will be compliant,” said AHIMA CEO Wylecia Wiggs Harris, PhD, CAE. “Efficient and accurate coding is vital to meet compliance, and it's our responsibility as leaders of HIM to guide this process and ensure accurate health records and proper reimbursement for hospitals and physicians.”

Artifact Health automates CDI queries, which coding and CDI professionals send to physicians when the clinical documentation provided in a patient’s record is insufficient to accurately code for billing and treatment. Although queries are critical to ensuring accurate patient records, they can contribute to physician burnout and are time-consuming for all involved if they are incomplete or result in numerous follow-ups.

AHIMA will provide its library of compliant query templates for indications such as sepsis, pneumonia, and kidney failure to the Artifact platform, which automates the query process by enabling physicians to respond quickly and easily with their smartphone. AHIMA will continuously revise the query templates to ensure they reflect the most recent coding and compliance updates.

Artifact automates responses and makes data reportable in real time by tracking queries and responses in a social media format-type feed. Users can see questions and responses, as well as the time taken to respond. The platform can be accessed via a smartphone app or website login and relevant clinical information such as discharge summaries can be attached.

Through this alliance with Artifact Health, AHIMA will widely disseminate its standardized electronic query templates and educational guidance for physicians, CDI specialists, and HIM professionals to help clarify clinical documentation and ultimately improve the quality of patient records. AHIMA recently published its Guidelines for Achieving a Compliant Query Practice (2019 Update) Practice Brief to establish and support industry-wide best practices for the function of clinical documentation querying.

Marisa MacClary, co-founder and CEO of Artifact Health, said Artifact’s alliance with AHIMA will help standardize compliant query workflow.

“Hospitals and health systems can integrate AHIMA’s world-class knowledge and best practices into their physician query process and be assured queries and educational guidance are accurate, compliant and current,” MacClary said.

[author] [author_image timthumb='on']/Portals/0/uploads/content_hub/Mary-Butler-author-photo.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Mary Butler is associate editor at Journal of AHIMA.[/author_info] [/author]