Reference no: EM132830484

Scenario,

The Memorial Hospital Health Information Management (HIM) department recently hired five new inpatient coders. Memorial is a behavioral health specialty hospital that has been experiencing an increasing surge of inpatient visits. While this was excellent news for the facility, the current HIM department staff could no longer handle processing the rising volume of inpatient charts.

Finding HIM staff that are familiar with these types of records is not always possible because behavioral health care is a specialty service that is not present at all common acute care hospitals. Unfortunately, the five new staff members have also not previously worked in a hospital with behavioral health records. Molly, Memorial Hospital's HIM Director, knew that she needed to quickly acclimate the new staff.

Molly decided that her first step in training the staff would be to give them an overview of the behavioral health services provided. Molly started this training with a walking tour of the various units within the facility. The tour helped the staff become familiar with the types of services that patients receive when obtaining behavioral health care at Memorial Hospital. Molly continued to make sure the staff completed all items on the new employee checklist.

The onboarding program was very successful, and the team quickly came up to speed. Soon, there was a need to bring on one additional inpatient coder to handle the increased volume. Dan, one of the first five newly acclimated coders, had a colleague, Jane, from a previous place of employment who was looking to make a career move. When Dan approached Jane about applying for a position at Memorial Hospital, Jane seemed nervous about making the transition to a new type of hospital setting. Dan quickly realized that understanding the differences among health care settings such as acute care, long-term care, behavioral health, and ambulatory care is very important. Dan decided that he needed to highlight the similarities and differences between the coding tasks that Jane was performing at her current position and those performed at Memorial. He wanted to help Jane become more familiar and comfortable with making the move to a new setting.

Dan and Jane met at a local bistro and discussed general processes within each type of facility. Jane quickly decided that working at a specialty setting, such as behavioral health, would allow her to focus in on specific skill sets that not all coders have. This was very appealing to her and she became excited about the opportunity. Dan let Molly know that she would soon be receiving an application for the coding position from his former colleague.

Why do you think Jane was apprehensive about applying for the coding position at Memorial Hospital?

Why do you think it is important to understand the particular health care settings to which you apply and/or accept employment?

Would you be willing to accept a position at a new setting that you are unfamiliar with?

Do you think you would also need to review the pros and cons of making this transition?