Addressing medical coding and billing part II: a strategy for achieving compliance. A risk management approach for reducing coding and billing errors.

Medical practice today, more than ever before, places greater demands on physicians to see more patients, provide more complex medical services and adhere to stricter regulatory rules, leaving little time for coding and billing. Yet, the need to adequately document medical records, appropriately apply billing codes and accurately charge insurers for medical services is essential to the medical practice's financial condition. Many physicians rely on office staff and billing companies to process their medical bills without ever reviewing the bills before they are submitted for payment.

Correctional health care: implications for public health policy.

"Correctional Health Care: Implications for Public Health Policy" is the first in a series of articles that examines the special health care needs of persons who are incarcerated in America's correctional facilities. The intent of the series is to gain a better understanding about the unmet health needs of incarcerated persons, the importance of addressing the health service delivery system in correctional facilities, and the implications that may arise from neglecting to address these health issues on health outcomes for individual detainees and society at-large when detainees transition back into the community. This article provides a descriptive overview of the corrections population, their sociodemographics, health care needs, and health concerns that are in need of improvement.

Data Elements for Emergency Department Systems, Release 1.0 (DEEDS): A Summary Report.

See editorial, p 274. Variations in the way that data are entered in emergency department record systems impede the use of ED records for direct patient care and deter their reuse for many other legitimate purposes. To foster more uniform ED data, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control is coordinating a public-private partnership that has developed recommended specifications for many observations, actions, instructions, conclusions, and identifiers that are entered in ED records.