E-book on Compliance and Business Best Practices in Healthcare Documentation

The Compliance & Operations Best Practices in Healthcare Documentation Organizations: The EBP Manual is now available as an e-book at a new, affordable price of $400 for AHDI eligible members. For a limited time, when you purchase this e-book with online access, you’ll receive a free organizer (binder & tabs) to print a copy for your library!

Compliance and best practices in business operations are priorities for business owners, independent contractors, HIM directors, and all of those who seek services from medical transcription organizations. This comprehensive e-manual will guide you through many of these complex issues and give you downloadable policies and procedures that you can customize for your own business needs (they are Word documents). AHDI and CDIA have worked with expert legal counsel to develop this skillfully written material to save your valuable time and money.

After purchasing the e-manual, the electronic files will be accessible through the "Member Center" and clicking to "My Account" in approximately one hour. Past purchasers of the printed EBP Manual received a complimentary copy of the ebook. Log onto the AHDI website to access it through your account.

Read more about the e-manual and buy your copy today!

An Unprecedented Month of Standards

Developing standards and best practices is a critical objective for any professional association. Beyond advocacy and representation, an industry looks to associations for guidance on a wide array of professional issues. Within the last 30 days, AHDI and MTIA (in collaboration and/or coordination with AHIMA) have published an impressive compendium of professional standards and best practices guides to assist this sector in planning, executing, and managing critical programs around the delivery of healthcare documentation services. Medical transcriptionists, editors, quality assurance coordinators, managers/supervisors, and transcription service organizations should look to these resources when adopting best practices in these areas:

• EBP: Resource Guide for Healthcare Documentation Specialists: This companion guide to the Ethical Best Practices Manual was released this month to provide guidance in HIPAA/regulatory compliance, ethical practices in employment and compensation, and provision of services specifically for the working transcriptionist/editor. This resource manual was a quick sell out at the AHDI annual convention in Austin, so get your copy today!


• Healthcare Documentation Quality Assessment and Management Practices: The culmination of over 3 years’ collaborative effort between AHDI, MTIA and AHIMA, this quality assurance best practices guide has finally been released to guide the healthcare documentation sector as well as healthcare facilities in the establishment and oversight of quality assurance programs that meet the evolving needs of health information management.


• Dictation Best Practices Tool Kit: Developed by AHDI and endorsed by AHIMA, this completely updated tool kit provides resources and training materials for healthcare organizations, transcription service providers, and SRT vendors to use in training healthcare providers toward quality dictation practices and SRT readiness.

Associations Promote Start-to-Finish Quality Standards

On the heels of the recently announced final rules for meaningful use of EHR systems, implementable standards for improving the quality of the healthcare documentation process have been released this week by AHDI in collaboration with AHIMA. The two associations are sending a message to the sector that accuracy in the capture process will be critical to making sure high-integrity information is consumed and repurposed in the EHR. Leaders from both associations, as well as contributors from MTIA, collaborated to produce Healthcare Documentation Quality Assessment and Management Practices, a resource for establishing a comprehensive transcription QA program for healthcare organizations. In addition, the association will be releasing the newly revised Dictation Best Practices Tool Kit, designed to assist healthcare facilities in improving dictation practices, thereby addressing quality from the document creation point to ensure quality reporting outcomes. The tool kit has been reviewed and endorsed by AHIMA and is being distributed through both association websites. AHDI promoted these new standards this week at its 32nd Annual Convention and Expo, August 4-7, 2010, in Austin, Texas. Read the full press release here.

Dictation Best Practices Tool Kit—Newly Revised and Adopted by AHIMA!

AHDI and AHIMA are taking a collaborative step forward in support of documentation quality. Recognizing that quality documentation outcomes begin with high-integrity dictation, the associations have jointly released the latest edition of the Dictation Best Practices Tool Kit as a resource for managers, supervisors, HIM directors, and practice coordinators for training and preparing dictators to generate high quality dictation and be better prepared for migration to speech recognition. If you are charged with orienting/training dictators for your facility, we encourage you to download this tool kit as part of your strategy for new provider training and SRT "readiness" training.