How to Improve Quality of Care and Revenue Cycle Integrity Through Clinical Documentation

Improving the documentation of medical treatment in electronic health records improves the quality of care patients receive and has a positive downstream effect on hospitals' revenue.

Traditional clinical documentation improvement, or CDI, processes involve sending retrospective queries for physicians, which creates additional and interruptive work for them. But by changing this paradigm so that clinicians can address gaps in documentation when they are creating the note, healthcare organizations can reduce the amount of retrospective queries sent to physicians. High-quality documentation also ensures that hospitals are being properly reimbursed for the care they provide, therefore improving revenue cycle integrity. 

With the COVID-19 pandemic further stressing hospitals' already limited resources, it's critical for healthcare providers to emphasize clinician engagement and efficiency.