Question

As a Director of Health Information at a medium hospital , Create a performance management plan for your medical coders;

Address questions such as:

*How will expectations be communicated?

*What is the training plan and professional development plan?

*How will you conduct performance appraisals and how often?

*How will poor performance be addressed?

*How will excellent performance be rewarded?

Establish productivity standards for your medical coders. Include both qualitative and quantitative standards

Answer 1

Like in all other professions, medical coding have gained attention of lot many people nowadays. The recruitment of medical coders is done according to different criteria. Some institutions hire coders with the initial training of course without certification. They give them a specific during to practice and then clear their exams for certification. Whereas some institutions hire only professional coders with certification and experiences. In order to enhance, manage and improve performance of medical coders certain tools and measures needs to be adopted.

1. The institution has its mission and vision based on which every employee is expected to work. These expectations should be communicated to them in writing at the time of joining which will serve as a guidelines for the coders to perform effectively. This will also set a criteria for the hospital department to evaluate the coders according to the attainment of these expectations.
2. The institution should develop a orientation classes for the newly joined medical coders to familiarize them with the institutional standards of coding. The coders who are already working with the institution should be given inservice training to update their knowledge and improve their performance outputs.
3. In order to evaluate their performace, the records completed by them are checked and graded on weekly or monthly basis. This creates a percentage of performance level which is circulated through emails. This percentage is generated based on the quality of coding, number of correctly coded records and the completion of the target records daily.Based on these percentage, the staff appraisals are conducted which can be monthly or six monthly.
4. The excellent performer of the month is identified and is provided with certificate for excellency. The name of the excellent coder is highlighted in the common noticeboard for a month which gets replaced by other coder upon next staff appraisal. The coders are also promoted to higher grade based on productivity levels according to the coding career ladders. For example: Coder I,coder II,Coder specialist
5. The poor performance coder is called up by the department head to recognize if he needs any assistance to improve work and motivates and encourages them to make improvements.

The various productivity standards for medical coders both qualitative and quantitative are:

• Coder codes all diagnoses and procedures.
• Documentation is present to substantiate codes assigned.
• Correct sequencing according to coding guidelines. If codes are accurate entered into the system.
• Coder completes the registry forms when applicable.
• Attendence
• Participation in career development activities.
• Ability to help other workers in completing work during heavy workloads.
• Ability to use good judgement and demonstrate flexibility.
• Positive interpersonal relationship in dealing with fellow employees, physicans and all healthcare professionals.