Talk Ten Tuesdays

What happens when the Inpatient-Only (IPO) List goes away? The entire list is expected to be eliminated Jan. 1, 2028. This will necessitate careful, patient-specific status determinations, rather than automatic assumptions based only on the procedure being performed. The removal of a procedure from the IPO list does not mean that every such procedure must be classified as “outpatient.” Instead, th...

Public comments have closed on the 2026 AHIMA-ACDIS Query Practice Brief. In other words, the time to talk is over, and the time to listen has begun. During the next live edition of the popular Internet broadcast Talk Ten Tuesdays, produced by ICD10monitor, you can hear out senior healthcare attorney Richelle Marting as she leads a reflection session to review key themes from the Brief. She will a...

After a two-year hiatus, the PEPPER (Program for Evaluating Payment Patterns Electronic Report) is back. It’s now available to all acute care hospitals and critical access hospitals.  During the next live edition of Talk Ten Tuesday, Dr. Ronald Hirsch will share some insights that listeners can get from their PEPPER to improve their hospital’s compliance, quality, and revenue.    To learn more, re...

Nearly every American hospital has at least one physician advisor. So, how does the physician advisor at your facility measure up? We reached out to longtime physician advisor Dr. Juliet Ugarte Hopkins to address this issue in her capacity as the special guest for the upcoming live edition of the popular Talk Ten Tuesday broadcast. According to Dr. Ugarte Hopkins, also the chief medical officer fo...

There’s a quiet battle taking place, with no field hospitals for the sick and wounded, and no bloodshed. But the stakes are high, and the losses are unforgiving. It’s the battle of algorithms. Employed by both payers and providers, the ultimate prize: money, in the form of reimbursement from submitted claims for medical care. Payers deny and recoup. Providers bill as margins shrink. During the nex...

Although one could conclude that artificial intelligence (AI) is a relatively new technology in healthcare, the reality is that AI has been silently working in the shadows for a while now. During the next live edition of the popular Talk Ten Tuesdays broadcast, you’ll hear how AI is guiding the technology of the automated query technology at HITEKS, under the supervision of Gerasimos Petratos, fou...

At last, the secrets of healthcare technology will be revealed during a fresh new two-part series, especially written for the accomplished healthcare professional who wants a refresher course on the latest developments that are quickly enveloping healthcare. Coders, clinical documentation integrity specialists (CDISs), and Revenue Cycle professionals who comprise the Talk Ten Tuesday (TTT) audienc...

The role of physician advisor began as a friendly clinical champion for case/utilization management and clinical documentation integrity (CDI) teams. Today, the role has evolved into a catchall profession within hospitals.   With a scope that encompasses multiple departments within revenue cycle, quality, and hospital utilization, it has becoming increasingly difficult for single individuals to su...

What’s new for the proposed 2026 American Health Information Management Association/Association of Clinical Documentation Integrity Specialists (AHIMA-ACDIS) Practice Brief? What’s unchanged? And what does it really mean to issue a “compliant” query in today’s healthcare landscape? According to healthcare attorney Richelle Martin, the special guest for the next live edition of the popular Internet...

Learning how daily payer logs can help you and your utilization review (UR) team identify denials earlier, strengthen communication between UR and clinical documentation integrity (CDI), and improve the defensibility of medical necessity carries the potential to be a game-changer for healthcare professionals. During the next episode of Talk Ten Tuesday, Teri Rice, a regulatory specialist with HCPr...

The Association of Clinical Documentation Integrity Specialists (ACDIS) will conclude the formal agenda of its Annual Conference at the close of business next Tuesday in Chicago, but not before the preeminent Dr. James S. Kennedy reports on the highlights of the 2027 Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) Proposed Rule. Kennedy, no stranger to the Talk Ten Tuesday audience, will be the specia...

Many of you dedicated healthcare professionals no doubt often find yourselves wearing many different hats, as does Penny Jefferson, cohost of the long-running Talk Ten Tuesdays weekly national podcast. During the next live edition of the popular Internet program, Jefferson will serve as our special guest. Jefferson is expected to report on the recent guidance and enforcement from the U.S. Departme...

As federal oversight of risk adjustment and documentation practices intensifies, healthcare organizations are facing new scrutiny regarding how patient complexity is documented and reported.  Recent guidance and enforcement activity from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) has placed renewed focus on risk-adjustment accuracy, defensible document...

A recent False Claims Act case is raising an important question for CDI professionals: what if the diagnosis is clinically valid, but the process behind it is challenged?  During the next live edition of the popular Talk Ten Tuesdays podcast, Dr. Robert Oubre, director of CDI and UM at St. Tammany Health System, will report on a motion for summary judgement on a case (Smith vs Mercy Health) on  ho...

Data breaches have unfortunately become a fact of life in America’s healthcare system. The next edition of the popular Talk Ten Tuesdays will focus on just the latest in a succession of such incidents, as providers scramble to determine what to do to prevent cyberattacks – and how to react when they arise, nonetheless. The popular Internet broadcast will also feature these additional instantly rec...

After two powerful segments introducing her neurodiversity coding initiative, Tami McMasters Gomez, Executive Director for the Mid-Revenue Cycle, Enterprise-Wide Coding and CDI Operations for the University of California Davis Medical Center, returns to report on how this program is unlocking untapped strengths, improving accuracy, and building a more resilient health information (HIM) workforce....

The rise of third-party payer audits is no secret to healthcare professionals and facilities, but one type of audit has gained particular attention in recent years: the clinical validation audit.  Clinical validation audits ultimately lead to a downgrade of a hospital’s diagnostic-related group (DRG) payment, but the process by which they reach that result makes them particularly curious.  During...

It’s huge, and serious. Its implications may impact millions, even beyond the halls of healthcare. In fact, it’s the eighth-largest healthcare-related cybersecurity breach in U.S. history. In Texas alone, 15.4 million residents were involved – nearly half the state’s population. Oregon reports another 10.5 million. Other states are still notifying residents. The final number may climb even higher....

Part II of the groundbreaking Talk Ten Tuesday series concludes as Tami McMasters Gomez returns to share the real-world impact of UC Davis Health’s neurodiversity coding internship. In this powerful follow-up, Tami moves beyond the vision and into outcomes — workforce transformation, productivity gains, retention success, and the measurable value of inclusive hiring in HIM. This isn’t a theory. It...

Once a relic symbolic of earlier times in medicine, the Inpatient-Only (IPO) List has been added to the junkyard of outdated medical processes and practices. And if you and your team fail to plan and align your system appropriately, you risk major financial, operational, and compliance consequences. The good news: during the next live edition of Monitor Mondays, you’ll learn why inpatient status i...

What if the solution to healthcare’s coding workforce challenges has been hiding in plain sight? The conversation doesn’t end with rethinking who can succeed in medical coding. In Part II of this special Talk Ten Tuesday series, the focus is on how healthcare organizations can get involved . This broadcast will highlight a growing partnership with the American Health Information Management Associa...

What if the solution to healthcare’s coding workforce challenges has been hiding in plain sight? During this special two-part Talk Ten Tuesday series, UC Davis Health shares how an innovative neurodiversity-focused coding internship is redefining how talent is identified, trained, and retained.  Join Tami McMasters Gomez, Executive Director, for the Mid-Revenue Cycle, Enterprise-Wide Coding and CD...

While many of you might have been enjoying the holiday season, the beat of healthcare keeps on beating. Much has happened in the world of medical coding and that is why the producers of Talk Ten Tuesday are dedicating the next live edition of the popular national Internet broadcast to the topic of coding. And that’s why Dr. James S. Kennedy, a trained medical professional who loves coding, will be...

What’s new when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI) and coding? Listen to the next edition of the long-running and popular Talk Ten Tuesday and learn from longtime RACmonitor and ICD10monitor contributing author Sharon Easterling. Sharon Easterling will continue her editorial series on artificial intelligence and medical record coding. The potential for AI in health information is both exciti...

Are you wondering what connects the nouns in the headline together? It’s a Medicare cognitive screening devise. Look at these words and commit them to memory. Try to repeat back this list of words twice a day, from memory: Apple, Chair, Ocean, Book, and Clock.   During the next live edition of the popular Talk Ten Tuesday live Internet broadcast, Gloryanne Bryant will report on what  some medical...