DRG Inpatient Hospital Bill Pricing and Review

INPATIENT DRG VALIDATION

QRConcepts' team of medical professionals can unravel the complex inpatient hospital DRG reimbursement system to ensure that the coding and fees reflect the resources expended in the care of the patient, thereby preventing excess reimbursement to the hospital.

How and why hospitals may optimize rates -

Diagnosis and procedure codes (ICD-9) are used to arrive at the final DRG rate. However, under this system, using one ICD-9 code that is incorrect but similar to the correct ICD-9 code may represent the difference of thousands of dollars in revenue for a hospital on a single case. The financial impact is so great that many hospitals are investing millions each year outsourcing their medical coding to certified medical coders and auditors in hopes of optimizing their DRG and increasing revenue. Although payers are aware of the fees associated with a facility's assigned DRG, they rarely have the resources necessary to effectively validate and challenge the facility's basis for the coding of those DRGs.

How the QRConcepts team identifies and manages errors in coding and fees -

a. Bill Audit: Each bill's codes will be reviewed and grouped by certified medical coders using 3M APR DRG proprietary grouping software. Once the APR-DRG group is determined, the hospital fee will be calculated to confirm or refute the fee billed;

b. Coding Validation with Bill Audit: Our professional team of RN medical coders will validate the ICD-9 diagnostic and procedural codes assigned against the medical record. They will review the inpatient clinical record, and where codes were assigned incorrectly, without proper clinical support, or have been maximized resulting in increased fees, the team will re-code and justify changes.