The Complete Coding & Documentation Guidelines for Hierarchical Category Conditions

by David Shogan

Risk Adjustment and Hierarchical Condition Category (HCC) coding is a payment model mandated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in 1997. Implemented in 2003, this model identifies individuals with serious or chronic illness and assigns a risk factor score to the person based upon a combination of the individual’s health conditions and demographic details. The individual’s health conditions are identified via International Classification of Diseases – 10 (ICD –10) diagnoses that are submitted by providers on incoming claims. There are more than 9000 ICD-10 codes that map to 79 HCC codes in the Risk Adjustment model. CMS requires documentation in the person’s medical record by a qualified health care provider to support the submitted diagnosis. Documentation must support the presence of the condition and indicate the provider’s assessment and/or plan for management of the condition. This must occur at least once each calendar year in order for CMS to recognize the individual continues to have the condition. Accurate HCC coding information helps create a more complete picture of the complexity of a patient population, improves the value of the problem list, and enables better management of a patient’s chronic diseases. And better documentation that captures the full complexity of the patient often results in appropriately higher reimbursement. Current challenges and opportunities Provider organizations are facing several challenges as they plan for HCC coding and 1) Provider engagement, education, and incentive alignment Impacts to workflow and efficiency. 2) Insufficient or incomplete medical record documentation in the EHR. 3) EHR disconnect and poor problem list utilization. 4) Incorrect coding. 5) Inferior or non-existent HCC-specific analysis and prioritization.

The Medicare Annual Wellness Visit (AWV) is a yearly preventative care visit offered at no cost to all Medicare Part B beneficiaries. The purpose of the visit is to identify patient risk factors and plan for future preventative service needs. This visit is well reimbursed and can be conducted by any licensed health professional or a team of professionals, under the direct supervision of a physician. While the AWV is recognized as an important benefit, 82.3% of Medicare beneficiaries did not receive an AWV in 2015. The bottom line is that patients want time with their physicians to discuss their health. Our clients have professed repeatedly that they see a difference in patient engagement as they capture more AWVs.

With changes like value-based purchasing putting revenue at risk, accurate documentation is even more critical. A good physician query process helps, but relying on queries alone leaves money on the table.

You need to prevent documentation errors from happening in the first place by getting your physicians to pay closer attention to what they write down.

The medical record should tell a story. Coding specialist need to understand what the physician is thinking and know when the provider isn’t documenting the complete information to assign the most specific diagnosis code. Ensure that all opportunities for documentation improvement are identified.

For the medical record to be accurate and timely, a physician query process should be in place. Ongoing chart reviews and provider education reinforces the essential points of good documentation and helps to bridge the gap between what the provider needs clinically documented in the medical record from one visit to the next, and the coding guidelines that are required to support the codes being submitted.

155 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 31, 2017