Remember eating alphabet soup as a child and gathering those tiny letters made from pasta to spell your name? Well, getting the right letters together still matters, and in the healthcare world, three letters to pay close attention to are HCC.
A complex topic will yield to a systematic approach
In last month’s opening blog in this series, we defined the field of Population Health as including “health outcomes, patterns of health determinants, and policies and interventions that link these two.”
Lessons to meet the challenges of COVID-19 in 2022 and beyond
Despite everyone’s hopes — and the efforts and sacrifices of vaccine makers, public health authorities, and the general public — 2021 is ending much as it began, with continued disruption and uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
When taking on risk is the right move
Physicians don’t usually encourage their patients to take unnecessary risks, much less take such risks themselves. After all, they are supposed to be role models. But there are times when taking on risk is not only the right thing to do but can show others the path to a bright healthcare future.
In 2004, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services introduced Hierarchical Condition Category (HCC) coding.
Evaluating patient risk is as old as medicine itself. As early as the fifth century BCE, notes a 2011 study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Hippocratic tradition focused on the prevention of disease through diet and exercise.
But ancient wisdom works best when combined with modern technology.
What kind of medical practices need an advanced tool for determining patient risk, projecting the likelihood of adverse health events, and processing each patient with the highest possible degree of specificity in coding for reimbursements?
Because knowing your patients’ medical histories well plays such a central role in delivering appropriate and effective treatments to them, healthcare providers today need the most effective possible risk-adjustment model available.