Interventional procedures: Physician involvement enhances clinical coding

摘要

Editor - The study by Hogarth et al (Clin Med April 2012 pp189) demonstrates marked improvement in coding and financial outcomes by better collaboration between clinicians and coders in the setting of electrophysiology and device procedures. This is also generalisable to other interventional procedures, particularly as they tend to attract higher tariff and are typicaEy performed in high volume as they generally require expertise in particular centres with sufficient patient flow, and hence the potential for financial disparity if these are miscoded is much higher. The principal requirement for success here is for better collaboration between clinicians and coders, although this can be achieved in different ways.