Automated CDI Queries: Is this the End for CDISs?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is omnipresent — in self-driving cars, manufacturing, and healthcare management. Now, AI is even being deployed in the physician query process. Yet engineering AI to be programmed for physician queries requires understanding the physician’s thought process. And that’s always a challenge, on any level — especially for AI computer scientists.

For the latest update on automated physician queries, we have invited Gerasimos “Gerry” Petratos, CEO for HiTeks, a company that has several installed automated physician query solutions in major healthcare systems, to serve as the special guest during the next edition of Talk-Ten-Tuesdays. Gerry will report on the challenges inherent in these efforts, as well as explain whether automated queries might mark the end of the clinical documentation integrity specialist (CDISs) profession.

Because clinicians require timely and accurate advice to improve patient care and practice management, AI appears to be a key solution to assist in streamlining this process. The advent of the electronic health record (EHR) has made real-time decision support possible, due to the common workflows and digitization of clinical data available for processing. However, the avalanche of clinical data produced every day for innumerable medical conditions is stashed away in difficult-to-consume structure, often going untapped.

The live broadcast will also feature these other segments:

• Coding Report: Laurie Johnson, senior healthcare consultant with Revenue Cycle Solutions, LLC, will report on the latest coding news.
  
  
• Tuesday Focus: PSIs, Providers and Queries: Christel Kemble, the PSI/HAC consultant for Covenant HIM, will report on the intersection of Patient Safety Indicators and physician queries.
  
  
• News Desk: Dennis Jones, administrator of patient financial services (PFS) for Montefiore/Nyack Hospital, will anchor the Talk Ten Tuesdays News Desk.
  
  
• TalkBack: Erica Remer, MD, founder and president of Erica Remer, MD, Inc. and Talk Ten Tuesdays co-host, will report on a subject that has caught her attention during her popular segment.