Emotional Intelligence — Professional Development Tidbit!
Sharing helpful career advancing tips and strategies to sharpen the skills prospective employers look for in a coder! 
nnEmotional Intelligence (EI) – Many of us are familiar with IQ tests, which measure our intellectual abilities and intelligence. Many of us also believe that having a high IQ makes you the best candidate for any job. However, employers are focusing more on emotional intelligence rather than academic aptitude. Emotional intelligence is the capability of individuals to recognize their own and other people’s emotions, discern between different feelings and label them appropriately, using emotional information to guide thinking and behavior, and manage and/or adjust emotions to adapt to environments or achieve one’s goal(s). EI can be a huge asset to employers because it is the one part of the human psyche that we can develop and improve by learning and practicing new skills. We’ve all met very clever and intelligent people who nonetheless had no idea about how to deal with people, and the reverse. How we manage ourselves and the relationships we have with others can have a lasting impact on future opportunities.
Check out this article regarding the announcement that Anthem has calmed controversy over Colorado’s health insurance by submitting its proposed plan for 2018 to the state. nnHealth insurance giant Anthem announced late Monday that it has submitted proposed 2018 plans to the state, easing fears that it might back out of Colorado’s health insurance exchange and leave residents of several counties without an insurance choice.nnBut an Anthem spokesman declined to provide specifics on those plans — including where the company expects to offer them — meaning it remains unclear if Anthem will continue to provide coverage to the same number of Coloradans it currently does.nnMonday was the deadline for insurers hoping to participate next year on the Connect for Health Colorado exchange to file their proposed plans and rates with the state Division of Insurance for review. The exchange is a one-stop shop for health insurance on the individual market — where people buy their own plans, instead of receiving coverage through an employer or the government.n
nnCPT code 20680 requires the provider to incise through muscle layers and into the bone, necessitating a more complex, layered closure. The physician makes an incision overlying the site of the implant using deep dissection to visualize the implant (usually below the muscle level and within bone), using instruments to remove the implant from the bone. The physician repairs the incision in multiple layers using sutures, staples, etc. CPT Assistant and the AAOS (American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons) direct that the 20680 code is to be billed once per fracture site, rather than based on the number of pieces of hardware removed or the number of incisions made to remove the hardware from one fracture site or original area of injury. Billing 20680 more than once is only appropriate when hardware removal is performed in a different anatomical site unrelated to the first fracture site or area of injury. It is fraudulent to send a patient to the OR/ASC for the sole purpose of seeking reimbursement for 20680, when medical necessity is not supported.
CMS proposed a final set of codes in April’s hospital IPPS rule, including over three hundred changes.nnStarting Oct. 1, it will be possible to select a specific ICD-10-CM code when a patient is in remission from abuse of each of a variety of substances, including alcohol, opioids, cannabis, and nicotine.nnThose nine new codes are among 360 new, 142 deleted, and 226 revised diagnosis codes in the final 2018 
As part of the new coding format for our newsletter, Welter Healthcare Partners is excited to offer you a new surgery coding series in which we want to help you! The 2nd week of every month we will highlight a complicated surgical case. This week we are highlighting a general surgery case. We want to hear from you! If you have a complicated surgery case and need help with coding, please upload the operative note by clicking on the link below. Remember to remove ALL patient protected health information and organization identifiers. Welter Healthcare Partners will not use any medical records submitted in which PHI is not removed and protected. 
nnThe Wanna Cry or Wanna Decryptor ransomware virus swept the globe last month and virtually shut down several dozen regional health authorities within the National Health Service of the United Kingdom, while simultaneously impacting the operations of such diverse entities as Spain’s national telephone service, La Telefónica; Germany’s railway system, Deutsche Bahn; automotive plants of the French car manufacturer, Renault; the Russian Interior Ministry; and universities in China and Taiwan.nnIn its notice sent out as part of Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) and the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) list serves, HHS stated that the department is aware of two, large, multi-state hospitals systems in the U.S. that are continuing to face significant challenges to operations because of the WannaCry malware. HHS specifically notes that this not a new WannaCry attack.nnThe virus can persist even on a machine that has been patched, however, the virus will not spread to a patched machine, but the attempt to scan can disrupt Windows operating systems when it executes. The particular effect varies according to the version of Windows on the device, HHS stated.nnWannaCry ransomware is a fast-propagating worm which exploits Windows’ Server Message Block version 1 (SMBv1) protocol to move through a network or infect other systems on the Internet. However, according to HHS in its notice, SMBv1 might not be the only vector of infection for WannaCry, so even patched systems could still be infected if the malware is introduced to the system in a different manner.n