Solution Showcase: Transformed Coding Performance

Solution:  Consulting & Interim Leadership

Topic: Code Smarter. Perform Better. Elevate Your Coding Performance.

Organization: Academic Medical Center, Multi-hospital system.

Challenge:  Our client faced a challenge in streamlining its coding processes across inpatient, outpatient, and professional coding categories.  The organization aimed to reduce uncoded days metric to below 1.3 days to enhance overall performance, reduce bottlenecks, and improve efficiency and time to collect.  At the time, uncoded days were higher than desired, creating delays in the coding workflow.

Solution:  To address these issues, a multipronged approach was used:

1. Daily Metrics Management – J2 introduced mechanisms to track and monitor coding performance on a daily basis.
2. Leader Accountability – Managers were engaged and held responsible for tracking progress and managing team performance.
3. Monitoring and Baseline Establishment – initial monitoring was conducted to establish a baseline for comparison, setting clear performance expectations.
4. Workload distribution – Managers worked with their teams to ensure there was a balanced distribution of coding workloads.
5. Validation of Productivity & Quality – Maintained a focus on both productivity and quality 

Results: The results of these initiatives did not compromise coding quality and exceeded the original target, with significant reductions in uncoded days:

• Hospital Inpatient Coding: Reduced from 1.99 days to 1.21 days.
• Outpatient Coding: Reduced from 2.75 days to 1.13 days.
• Professional Coding: Reduced from 1.29 days to 0.68 days.

Outcomes: These efforts resulted in a significant boost in coding efficiency across all categories, with each surpassing the target goal of reducing uncoded days to 1.3 or lower. Froedtert Health not only met but exceeded its coding performance objectives, leading to faster processing times and improved operational effectiveness.

At J2 Integrity Solutions, we don’t settle for the status quo; we partner with teams to drive measurable improvements in operational performance while not compromising quality.