Indiana Institute of Technology Benchmarking Productivity Case Study

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I’m stuck on a Health & Medical question and need an explanation.

Benchmarking Productivity

As the HIM Director at Indiana Tech Hospital, you oversee the Medical Coding Unit.The Coding Unit consists of 10 coders. There are 4 Inpatient Coders, 2 Outpatient, 2 ER coders, and 2 Ancillary Coders. There are six full-time (40 hr/wk) coders, and four part time (24 hr/wk) coders as noted below. The Discharge Not Final Billed Report has demonstrated and increase in DNFB dollars, which is directly related to an increase in the back-log of coding that has been observed over the past several months. As the Director, you first step is to review the current productivity of your Coding team to determine if your need to adjust the productivity standards or if you need to address personnel needs.Please use the data provided to answer the questions below:

Current Productivity Benchmarks (Per Day):

  • Inpatient Charts – 65
  • Outpatient Charts- 230
  • ER Charts- 160
  • Ancillary Charts- 285

Current Productivity:

  

ID

Coder Role

PT/FT

Daily

Hourly

 

11

Inpatient Coder

FT

18

 

21

Inpatient Coder

FT

21

 

31

Inpatient Coder

PT

11

 

41

Inpatient Coder

PT

9

 

51

Outpatient Coder

FT

126

 

61

Outpatient Coder

PT

48

 

71

ER Coder

FT

92

 

81

ER Coder

PT

87

 

91

Ancillary Coder

FT

137

 

00

Ancillary Coder

FT

145

Use the Data provided above to answer the following questions:

  • Compute the hours productivity for each of the coders: (You can add the numbers to the “hourly” column above.
  • Compute the productivity for each group class of coders ( Inpatient, Outpatient, ER, Ancillary):
    • Inpatient:
    • Outpatient:
    • ER:
    • Ancillary:
  • Determine if the both the individual coders, and group of coders are meeting the current productivity benchmark targets.
  • What conclusions can you draw from the study? Be detailed and thorough on this response, touching on all possible conclusions.
  • Recommend a new productivity standard based on the information gathered above, in order to reduce the notes backlog.
  • Do you currently have enough staff to handle the current workload if there is nobacklog? If not, what do you recommend?