RE: chart reviews

[Guest guest]

You can also consider using a non-clinical person(scheduler or someone

who may help with paperwork if you have that?) to do an initial run

though, and then you follow up for a more clinical review. A non

clinical who is trained appropriately can easily spot clerical errors,

missing documentation, missing 30 day progress reports, exercise flow

sheet that do not appear to support charges rendered, with the clinical

person giving the chart a second scan for clinical appropriateness of

selected interventions, etc. Still time consuming overall, but can keep

it in house, and divides up the work a bit. If you find trends, you

target your reviews, and focus on those therapists or interventions

that are more problematic.

Pierre H. Rougny, PT, OCS, MTC

Director of Rehab Services

Sebasticook Valley Health

141 Leighton St

Pittsfield, Me 04967

, 487-4072(direct line)

________________________________

From: PTManager [mailto:PTManager ] On

Behalf Of JHall49629@...

Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2012 1:45 PM

To: PTManager

Subject: Re: chart reviews

Jeff

While Lucy makes some very good points, I might take a counter approach

to this (and bear in mind that I am NOT a therapist/but I also do not

have a vested interest in you outsourcing either). First off, if your

clinic is extremely busy, do you want your staff burning more time in an

exercise that isn't one of their passions? Second, if your staff is

reviewing one another's charts, will working relationships get in the

way (i.e., will someone claim that a coworker has an axe to grind with

them)? Third, by outsourcing, would you staff be able to treat one more

person in their work day and therefore cover the cost of an outsource

review? Finally, if you can find someone to review the charts and bring

back documented findings, they would be viewed as an outside expert and

possibly their findings would be considered impartial.

One final note, many electronic medical record packages now come with

built in reviews to take care of complaince issues (this wouldn't

necessarily help with the substantive portion of your review). In the

future you might consider implementing an electronic medical record so

that some of the issues are handled daily and thus the review isn't

quite as cumbersome.

Jim <///><

Re: chart reviews

Jeff:

I would stop and consider strongly the idea of outsourcing.

First of all, you are hoping to gain the cooperation of your staff --

right?

Second, this is/will be/should be an educative process and ongoing -- to

fine-tune the practice and the professional growth of the staff.

You must have their acceptance of all this IF you want any degree of

success.

Outsourcing is not a recipe for such success. How would you feel if your

boss were to bring in an outsider to shove some medicine down your

throat? This hardly enhances your leadership skills.

Think about the various talents of your staff. Talk your needs/desires

over with the person who has the people skills to get the most

willingness out of the others. No nit-pickers -- you need someone who

can imagine the wider perspective. Someone who understands the

priorities of the practice. It has been years since I was the boss, but

-- even in those " older days " -- the younger staff (who are now well

into middle age) knew about peer review and chart review and the like.

Your staff should have had lots more prep for such activities within

their education. You have lots more tools nowadays to utilize to suit

yourself and the regs without outsourcing. APTA has lots of info to draw

on. And do not get discouraged because this will be slow-going, but it

will be suited to your organization. You will be the ones to alter what

does not work and keep or fine-tune what does. This also is an

opportunity for the staff to appreciate the burden you carry to insure

their paycheck. Staff often has no clue of the dangers of sloppy

documentation and poor treatment plans to cash flow.

Sounds like WORK -- right!!

So?

Good Luck, Lucy Buckley PT

chart reviews

Hi Group:

I have a relatively small private practice (2 offices, 5 PT's). With the

current healthcare environment, I am considering the idea of outsourcing

our chart reviews/audits. Like most, we have been performing them

in-house. But I think that I need someone with more specific expertise

and experience in this field to effectively do the job. Does anybody

have a group or person that they recommend? I have been getting a lot of

email information from the PT Compliance Group. Does anyone have

experience w them or know anything about this company?

Thanks,

Jeff Lewandowski PT, DPT, SCS, ATC, MTC

Suwanee GA