Recently I built an application to demonstrate some machine learning models that our team has been working on. Before beginning to write the code, I found it useful to have a conversation with a large language model (LLM) like ChatGPT to gather some insights about what technologies and designs would work best for my task. Although new code is being written all the time, many of the most successful software design principles have been around for a long time, and an LLM is well suited to help explain them to me. I’ve noticed that if my chat is brief, the ..read more

Behavioral health refers to mental health and substance use, which can frequently co-occur. This is what makes the results of the most recently published Youth Risk Behavioral Survey (YRBS) so intriguing, yet disturbing as well. Reported substance use among high school students has been steadily decreasing while rates of hopelessness and suicidal ideation are on the rise. What can explain this, and what can be done about it? First, the good news. The proportion of high school students reporting current alcohol use has been steadily decreasing from approximately half of students in the 1990s to ..read more

When a patient is admitted for treatment of complication resulting from medical or surgical care, the principal diagnosis should be the complication. An ICD-10-CM code for the specific complication may be assigned as a secondary diagnosis if it provides greater specificity about the nature of the condition. Coders should not assign an additional code when the complication code itself completely describes the condition. Traumatic injury codes should not be assigned for injuries occurring during or as a result of medical intervention. Code assignment is based on the provider’s documentation of t ..read more

My late father-in-law was a prince of a guy. He was kind, funny, generous and a jack of all trades. His skills included painting, plumbing, electrical, sheetrock, hanging wallpaper and more. He was practically Bob Vila, the American home improvement television show host. So, when my wife married me, she assumed she was getting someone equally as handy around the house. Of course, she was wrong. Early in our marriage, a bedroom lamp stopped working and my wife asked me to fix it. After several minutes of inspection (checking the cord, the switch, the outlet and even the circuit breaker ..read more

Sometimes, coding guidelines dictate that an illness be reported using multiple diagnosis codes. A widely used instance of this is for a condition that needs both the etiology of the disease (the underlying problem or cause) and one of its manifestations (the secondary condition caused by the problem). In the World Health Organization’s (WHO) release of ICD-9 and ICD-10, the answer is to use the “dagger and asterisk” system. While the United States has instead handled this by incorporating some pre-coordination in the clinical modification of ICD-10-CM, other countries like, Australia, Canada ..read more

I recently read a fascinating editorial in Nature titled, Why scientists trust AI too much – and what to do about it. The editorial is based on a research perspective penned by an anthropologist from Yale, Lisa Messeri, and a cognitive scientist from Princeton, Molly Crockett. What risk have they identified with using AI? Let’s dive in. AI and illusions of understanding in scientific research The editorial highlights a perspective article by Messeri and Crocket that examines more than 100 peer-reviewed papers on researcher AI use over the past five years. Per their findings, Messeri and Crocke ..read more

Whether you’re a seasoned coder or new to the industry, learning the coding guidelines and staying up to date with annual changes takes time and dedication. Each year presents new and exciting codes and often new guidelines, so it can be challenging to truly know it all.  With the multitude of information available to coders, it’s easy to forget one of the simpler guidelines: Z codes that may only be principal/first-listed diagnosis. The guidelines have an entire section dedicated to the proper selection of the Principal Diagnosis (Section II. A-K), but for this blog post I’ll just touch ..read more

I sat down with Garri Garrison, 3M Health Information Systems division president, to discuss HIMSS 2024 and some of the things you’ll see in our booth this year. HIMSS is next week, and we’re excited to showcase our autonomous coding and ambient intelligence solutions. Can you tell us what clients can expect in our booth? Yes! We’re excited to see a lot of our friends and partners in Orlando next week. I’m really excited to showcase the progress we’ve made with autonomous coding and ambient intelligence over the last year. We’ve been working hard alongside our clients to automate the ..read more

As we embark on a new calendar year (CY), there are several new updates and guidelines we should examine that went into effect Jan. 1, 2024. Specifically, improvement efforts surrounding quality of care continue to be of focus, as seen through the development of new CPT® and HCPCS Level II codes as well as expanded coverage of services.  The quality of care in health care can significantly impact patient outcomes, satisfaction and overall system effectiveness. High quality care ensures accurate diagnoses, appropriate treatments and improved overall health outcomes for patients. Conversely ..read more

This week I chatted with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning engineer and new Inside Angle blogger Nathan Brake to find out how he got started in the industry and his take on the latest generative AI models. Welcome to Inside Angle, Nathan! I hear your passion for machine learning goes back from early days. Tell us more. My journey into machine learning goes back to my childhood. My dad was always getting the latest computers, and my brother and I would get his hand-me-downs. I grew up with Windows XP then Vista. I would basically destroy the laptops by ..read more