Changing heart failure coding practices and hospital risk-standardized mortality rates

As the most common reason for hospitalization among the elderly, admissions for acute heart failure (HF) are a frequent target for quality measurement and improvement activities. Large scale performance improvement initiatives such as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Value Based Purchasing program use hospital HF mortality measures to determine hospital reimbursement rates.1,2 To identify patients with a hospitalization for HF, programs use International Classification of Diseases 9th or 10th Edition codes limited to the principal diagnosis position.

Source: Journal of Cardiac Failure - January 7, 2019 Category: Cardiology Authors: Allan J. Walkey, Meng-Shiou Shieh, Penelope Pekow, Tara Lagu, Peter K. Lindenauer Source Type: research