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M O N T HY E A R

Company News P.1

8 Tips to Manage Staff P.2

Staff ing Shortages P.2Salary Survey: Coder Employment on the Rise P.2Recipes for Recrui tment & Staff ing Success P.2

HIM Connections Newsletter Issue #3 December 2013

We Are Growing!

He combines more than 15 years of account management and recruiting experience, an MBA and real-life experience with executive expertise in the staffing industry. He loves being a servant leader and is a great listener. He spent the last 14 years with COMFORCE. He enjoys getting to know each customer and strives to build long-term relationships with everyone he serves. Pat lives in Birmingham with his wife and four children.

BJ Flynn, RHIT, CHP has joined our team as the Coding Director. BJ will be working directly with the coding team and leading our coding operations as we continue to grow and expand our service offerings. BJ lives in New Palestine, IN and throughout her career has worked as a Consultant, HIM Director, and Coding/Compliance Officer. She brings more than 35 years of HIM experience to the team and has worked on the facility and vendor side of HIM.

Happy Holidays! As another exciting year draws to a close, I would like to thank you for staying connected with HIM Connections through our quarterly newsletter, HIM Connex. I hope you have enjoyed receiving the information and found it helpful.

Looking ahead to 2014, I believe we can all agree it will be another exciting year for the Health Information Management industry. As you prepare for the transition to ICD-10, the HIM Connections team is here to assist with your recruitment and staffing needs. Our success, this year and always, is due to the clients and candidates who put their trust in us each day for their recruitment and staffing needs. Should your journey have you considering a job change in 2014, or a need for recruitment or staffing assistance, I hope you will turn to the HIM Connections team.

On behalf of everyone here at HIM Connections, I’d like to wish you a happy holiday season and a great New Year!

Kayce Dover, MSHI, RHIAPresident and CEO

Placement Services for CDI Special ists P.3

100 Great Places to Work P.3

Tips for Hir ing a CDI Special ist P.4

AHIMACon13 Takeaways P.4

Featured Jobs P.4Pat Lozito has joined our team as the Chief Operating Officer.

2013 Salary Survey: Coder Employment on the RiseSteady pace has coders leading the pack in the healthcare arena.

AAPC’s 2013 AAPC Healthcare Salary Survey reflects an expanding job market for coders, billers, practice managers, auditors, and educators being hired to help implement sweeping changes to the industry.

A number of the 15,000 members who responded to the survey were only recently hired and are at, or near, starting salary levels. As a result, the survey shows a slight decrease in the overall average salary: $46,847 (compared to last year’s $47,870). The survey also shows, however, that the average salary jumps up to $48,925 for those who have more than two years of experience in their field. In other words, the average salary continues to climb steadily for those who have been in the healthcare workforce for a few years.

Experience Impacts Salary. CLICK HERE for full report >>

888.655.4722 | info@himconnections.com | www.himconnections.comCopyright © 2013 • All Rights Reserved •HIM Connections, LLC

8 Tips to Manage Staff Across the Ages

By Laura PutreThe final article of Hospitals & Health Networks Magazine’s yearlong Generations in the Workplace series asks eight hospital leaders what problem each found particularly challenging about managing a multigenerational staff and the strategy used to solve it.

Framing the Issue

• Multiple generations working side by side in hospitals can create tension.

• Younger staff bring different expectations and goals to the workplace than their older counterparts do.

• Older staff offer experience and institutional knowledge that can be a valuable resource for hospitals.

• Many hospitals have a hard time finding Gen Xers and millennials interested in moving into leadership roles, and then preparing them to do so.

Read full article HERE >>

While technology implementations continue at a record pace, harried IT departments go wanting for qualified workers.

The technology revolution in health care is driving unprecedented demand for IT talent. Hospitals are implementing new systems, managing growing data sets, and training employees to use these platforms, all while aiming to comply with omnipresent meaningful use deadlines.

“It certainly is a perfect storm,” says Heidi J. Töppel, consulting director of compensation in health care and nonprofit organizations at Towers Watson, a professional services company.

Read full article HERE >>

Staffing Shortages Plague HIT

Thank You for VisitingUs at the AHIMAConvention!

Visit our Facebook page for more photos from the convention and feel free to comment on your favorite!

100 Great Places to Work in Healthcare

In the last issue we shared the “100 Best Places to Work” from Becker’s Hospital Review and Becker’s ASC Review. Now we bring you another group of standouts from Modern Healthcare! It takes dedicated managers to produce a dedicated work-force. Modern Healthcare’s 100 Best Places to Work for 2013 represents a diverse mix of employers, equally divided between providers and suppliers. In interviews with Modern Healthcare Editor Merrill Goozner, 14 leaders from those organizations explained what makes their companies tick and how they are able to keep workers motivated during a time of unprecedented change in the healthcare industry. Check out the video interviews here >>

Click the images to request a set!

In case you missed it... Press Release in June issue of For the Record HIM Connections, has announced the addition of new professional placement services for clinical documentation improvement (CDI) specialists. The firm helps hospitals find experienced, qualified, and credentialed clinical documentation experts to fuel CDI programs. CDI candidates should possess a strong clinical knowledge, solid communication skills, and thorough understanding of coding and medical necessity guidelines. RN, CDIP, CCDS, and CCS credentials are preferred, alongside proven analytical skills to research EHRs and uncover potential gaps in clinical documentation.

888.655.4722 | info@himconnections.com | www.himconnections.comCopyright © 2013 • All Rights Reserved •HIM Connections, LLC

Candidate Referral ProgramWe believe HIM Professionals like you are a valuable recruiting source and in the past have referred many of our best candidates. As a result, our Referral Reward Program has been revised to increase involvement in identifying qualified and talented HIM individuals for employment within our organization and the clients we serve by rewarding you better. To thank-you, we want to reward you with the best referral program in our industry. Click the image to the right for details.

FEATUREDJOBSCODING

ED Coding Specialist Boston or REMOTE Inpatient CoderREMOTE Outpatient CoderREMOTE Coding SpecialistHouston, TX

CONSULTING

CDI & Education ConsultantREMOTE CDI DirectorSouthern CA

Contract Coding Account ManagerBoston or REMOTE

HIM MANAGEMENT

Coding Director Tennessee

Health Information Coding ManagerGlenwood Springs, CO

OTHERSystems AnalystHartford, CT ICD-10 Coding EducatorSouthern CA

CLICK HERE FOR LIVE JOB LISTINGS!

My AHIMA Conference Takeaways:

1. Not only do coders need to know how to code in ICD-10, but they should also have more contextual knowledge of anatomy and procedures than ever before. Coding veter-an Gerri Walk, Senior Coding Manager and AHIMA-Approved ICD-10 trainer at HRS, tells me that to be truly successful in ICD-10, coders can’t just memorize a book.

2. Coders are so overwhelmed with studying and training for the ICD-10 switch that they don’t have time to think about the bigger financial picture and coding-related conse-quences. Codes obviously affect reimburse-ment. The wrong code can lead to audits, appeals and lots of red tape that physicians – particularly those in smaller practices or smaller hospitals – can’t afford. I did not get the feeling that these kinds of consequences are being conveyed at ICD-10 bootcamps and training sessions, which is a pity.

3. Experienced coders only, please. If you’re a recent graduate, you’re likely out of luck. Providers, like the women I spoke with at the Carilion Clinic, want coders with a lot of experience. They may ultimately shoot them-selves in the foot, however, by not taking on newer coding professionals. Experienced coders will soon be harder to come by (some are retiring to avoid the ICD-10 transition). Providers might want to seriously consider hiring new grads and turning them into homegrown coding talent. Kayce Dover of recruitment firm HIM Connections tells me she is starting to see more and more of this.

CLICK HERE to read the complete list of takeaways >>

Sorry Coders, It’s Not All About You 7 Takeaways from #AHIMACon13 By Jennifer Dennard, Billian’s Research

888.655.4722 | info@himconnections.com | www.himconnections.comCopyright © 2013 • All Rights Reserved •HIM Connections, LLC

These days, clinical documentation improvement is on everyone’s mind. As hospital’s focus on ramping up documentation to prepare for ICD-10, the demand for CDI specialists continues to grow. In fact, more than 80 percent of all hospitals will have a CDI program by 2014, according to a recent AHIMA study.

However, finding the best CDI candidate may be easier said than done, and it certainly requires careful consideration. Hospitals must hire someone who fits in

both personally and professionally with a variety of other individuals. The good news is that an experienced and thoughtful CDI specialist can work wonders for your hospital. Improved data quality, accurate reimbursement, better patient care and enhanced coder productivity are just a handful of the many benefits a facility can gain when hiring such an individual.

CLICK HERE to consider the following tips for recruiting a CDI specialist >>

Hiring a CDI Specialist: 3 Tips You Need to Know Written by Kayce Dover, MSHI, RHIA, President and CEO, HIM Connections | November 07, 2013

Hiring Tips for ICD-10 Helpclick here for infographic