CDI Staffing/Benchmark question

I know that CDI programs vary in many ways, but I would like to get an idea of the number of CDI FTEs required based on hospital discharges.


- We are a 350 bed facility

- Single facility, not part of a network

- Average around 22000 inpatient discharges a year

- Primarily focusing on CC/MCC capture, with beginning emphasis on APR capture for Quality/Mortality

The last thing I found was an estimate of 1 CDI per 1600 discharges. Is this estimate in the ballpark or is your facility practicing a different method that seems to be working well? The only article I found on ACDIS was a poll/article from 2010. There were some more recent polls but didn't seem to give the ratio of CDI to discharges. Does anyone know of a more recent article that details this type of polling information?

Thank you,
Loretta

Loretta Hoffmeister, RN CCDS
Clinical Documentation Improvment
St Anthony's Medical Center
loretta.hoffmeister@samcstl.org



DISCLAIMER: The information contained in this transmission may contain privileged and confidential information, including patient information protected by federal and state privacy laws. It is intended only for use by the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any review, dissemination, distribution, or duplication of this communication is strictly prohibited. The partaking of any action in reliance upon this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is illegal and a violation of the regulatory guidance in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). If you received this in error, please contact the sender immediately and delete the material from all computers.

Comments

  • Loretta

    Our program has approximately the same number of beds as you do! We are the "main" Institution-but pretty much own many other facilities-though we only review the main campus patients. Currently our CDI program has SIX CDI's -myself being the only one with certification (which gets me no benefit other than for my pride) :). Our team ONLY reviews the Medicare population-but are looking at expanding to ALL payors. Also, we are adding one of our satellite facilities for the CDI to review-though the admissions there are only about 4-6 daily from what we can tell at this point. (variable).

    Having been in this position for 7 years, I will tell you that originally I was trained to "get those MCC/CC's" but over the last several years-and currently we really strive for Quality. If you "do the right thing" and query appropriately, the MCC's and CC's will come and help show true SOI/ROM and o/e ratio. As long as providers document appropriately and we query with integrity to show the resources used, it helps the true severity of the patient and thus lends itself to the true picture of how sick the patient is!

    We are also working on the o/e ratio by starting to review ALL surgical patients-no matter the payor source.

    The BIGGEST part of the role of course is education-as we all know CMS is a moving target and providers don't know the rules for coding and think because they document that a patient is on "comfort care" means you don't have to diagnose any of their conditions! So, educate, educate, educate... show your worth!

    Hope this helps...

    Juli



  • Thank you Juli!

    From: CDI Talk [mailto:cdi_talk@hcprotalk.com]
    Sent: Monday, January 18, 2016 12:41 PM
    To: Hoffmeister, Loretta
    Subject: RE:[cdi_talk] CDI Staffing/Benchmark question

    Loretta

    Our program has approximately the same number of beds as you do! We are the "main" Institution-but pretty much own many other facilities-though we only review the main campus patients. Currently our CDI program has SIX CDI's -myself being the only one with certification (which gets me no benefit other than for my pride) :). Our team ONLY reviews the Medicare population-but are looking at expanding to ALL payors. Also, we are adding one of our satellite facilities for the CDI to review-though the admissions there are only about 4-6 daily from what we can tell at this point. (variable).

    Having been in this position for 7 years, I will tell you that originally I was trained to "get those MCC/CC's" but over the last several years-and currently we really strive for Quality. If you "do the right thing" and query appropriately, the MCC's and CC's will come and help show true SOI/ROM and o/e ratio. As long as providers document appropriately and we query with integrity to show the resources used, it helps the true severity of the patient and thus lends itself to the true picture of how sick the patient is!

    We are also working on the o/e ratio by starting to review ALL surgical patients-no matter the payor source.

    The BIGGEST part of the role of course is education-as we all know CMS is a moving target and providers don't know the rules for coding and think because they document that a patient is on "comfort care" means you don't have to diagnose any of their conditions! So, educate, educate, educate... show your worth!

    Hope this helps...

    Juli



  • edited March 2016
    1 CDI per 1600 discharges is also what I found when I looked for this info for a basic MCC/CC capture program. Reduce the number of discharges for each of the additional area your CDIs review (HACs PSIs etc.) I always point out that not having any kind of CDI software is also very time consuming and reduce our numbers for that factor too.
    We recently had a consultant visit from UHC, and they stated the CDI staffing ratio should be 1 per 100 beds.
    Good Luck!

    Vanessa Falkoff RN
    Clinical Documentation Improvement Coordinator
    University Medical Center of Southern Nevada
    1800 W Charleston Blvd
    Las Vegas, NV
    vanessa.falkoff@umcsn.com
    office 702-383-7322

    Compassion * Accountability * Respect * Integrity



  • We are a 'mature' program, reviewing for all manner of quality issues, as well as for billing purposes. We provide the typical services mentioned by other respondents.

    I am finding that we average 'about 2,100' total ACCOUNTS per full-time CDI staff per year - this includes all initial and f/u reviews, to include tracking and reconciliation w/ Coding and data entry.

    We review a mixture of payers - we perform MS-DRG and APR reviews.


    PE

    Paul Evans, RHIA, CCS, CCS-P, CCDS

    Manager, Regional Clinical Documentation & Coding Integrity
    Sutter West Bay
    633 Folsom St., 7th Floor, Office 7-044
    San Francisco, CA 94107
    Cell: 415.412.9421

    evanspx@sutterhealth.org

    [cid:image001.jpg@01D15297.57264440]

Sign In or Register to comment.