benchmarking productivity

Benchmarking Productivity

As the HIM Director at Indiana Tech Hospital, you oversee the Medical Coding Unit.The Coding Unit consists of 10 coders. There are 4 Inpatient Coders, 2 Outpatient, 2 ER coders, and 2 Ancillary Coders. There are six full-time (40 hr/wk) coders, and four part time (24 hr/wk) coders as noted below. The Discharge Not Final Billed Report has demonstrated and increase in DNFB dollars, which is directly related to an increase in the back-log of coding that has been observed over the past several months. As the Director, you first step is to review the current productivity of your Coding team to determine if your need to adjust the productivity standards or if you need to address personnel needs.Please use the data provided to answer the questions below:

Current Productivity Benchmarks (Per Day):

• Inpatient Charts – 65
• Outpatient Charts- 230
• ER Charts- 160
• Ancillary Charts- 285

Current Productivity:

Use the Data provided above to answer the following questions:

• Compute the hours productivity for each of the coders: (You can add the numbers to the “hourly” column above.
• Compute the productivity for each group class of coders ( Inpatient, Outpatient, ER, Ancillary):
  • Inpatient:
  • Outpatient:
  • ER:
  • Ancillary:
• Determine if the both the individual coders, and group of coders are meeting the current productivity benchmark targets.
• What conclusions can you draw from the study? Be detailed and thorough on this response, touching on all possible conclusions.
• Recommend a new productivity standard based on the information gathered above, in order to reduce the notes backlog.
• Do you currently have enough staff to handle the current workload if there is nobacklog? If not, what do you recommend?

Determination if coders are meeting current productivity

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