Beyond some bickering and stabs back and forth, my biggest take home
message from this call was the following.
O and P professionals are still suppliers and not health care specialists
due to your financial interest in all claims.
The clinical documentation document for physicians is CMS’s goal of
collecting a large amount of data of objective data about the patient. What
this data will be used for is unclear, but they will have will have it.
However, us as ‘suppliers’ are only able to contribute to this objective
data set in a subjective matter with our interpretation of a K level.
The vaguely described K-level system is what got us into this mess and as a
field we need to determine a way to fix it.
I issue a challenge to all practitioners to develop an extensive objective
rubric with multiple functional assessments to make your K level
determination as objective as possible.
This takes time, a considerable amount of time, but it is a necessary step
to turn us from suppliers into health care specialists.
And dismount soap box,
Tony Gutierrez CP
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Anthony R. Gutierrez
[email protected]
