Reference no: EM133435476

Roger is the lead coder at Solara Specialty Hospital in Harlingen. He has been with Solara for 12 years as a coder. Before working for Solara, he coded for 14 years at a similar sized acute care facility. During his coding career, Roger mostly coded outpatient encounters (ED visits, outpatient observations, and outpatient surgeries). Four years ago Roger was cross trained to code inpatient discharges. Last year's performance appraisal, Roger received an overall rating of 3.9 out of 5. This score indicates that he exceeds performance expectations. This performance appraisal, the HIM department and Roger experience many changes, including personal. The following are the changes:

• Roger took FMLA for six weeks due to wife's  health issues
• All coders are located in a central location now, Roger used to be in a quiet area alone. Each employee has a cubby area with dividers; however, the noise is much greater than before.
• All coders are using dual monitors from using one due to updates including computer-assisted coding.
• The coding manager of 35 years retired and the lead with 10 years of experience was promoted.
• Solara implemented a new EHR that required extensive training for all hospital employees.
  

It's time for performance appraisal reviews to be conducted and Roger has high expectations his evaluation will be similar to last year. The coding manager set up a 4:00 p.m. on a Thursday to review his performance evaluation. Roger arrives on time but has to wait outside of the manager's office for 15 minutes to finish a call. Roger enters the manager's office and hears music playing from his computer and notices his email open with notifications coming through. Roger sits down and the coding manager hands him the evaluation and says, "go ahead and review this and let me know if you have any questions please, I have some emails I need to answer since I'll be off tomorrow."

In reviewing the evaluation, Roger is shocked he scored a 3.0 out of 5 and is being put on a PIP with no raise. Roger's productivity and quality were marked below average with statistics he had never seen. There were items included that he had no idea were an issue. As Roger proceeded to review his evaluation, the manager's phone kept ringing and the manager kept answering emails. Roger was upset and attempted to address the evaluation but the manager became agitated and defensive. The coding manager was not open to discussing anything of the issues on the evaluation and stated she did not have time to review the stats with him. As Roger typically doesn't like conflict, he upsettingly signed the evaluation and PIP and left the office. The coding manager went about her day answering emails and neglected to notice Roger was upset. Three months later, Roger accepted another job at a specialty hospital within the same region of her Solara and he resigned with a two-week notice.

Assume the following when answering the questions: all performance appraisal reviews for Solara are performed at the end of the fiscal year, require periodic reviews throughout the year (but Roger did not receive any feedback), and Roger did not get a chance to perform a self-evaluation or request a 360 performance review from his peers.

1. Report three things that might have affected Roger's performance this performance appraisal cycle. Explain in detail why they might have affected his performance in comparison to the previous cycle.
2. Identify how the meeting for the performance review could have been improved by identifying three unprofessional incidents that occurred during the meeting.
3. Identify two negative events during this performance appraisal cycle that occurred and identify preventative methods so the same negative events do not occur next year.
4. Identify some training opportunities the HIM department would benefit from.