Measuring case severity: a novel tool for benchmarking and clinical documentation improvement.

Background: Severity of illness (SOI) is an All Patients Refined Diagnosis Related Groups (APR DRG) modifier based on comorbidity capture. Tracking SOI helps hospitals improve performance and resource distribution. Furthermore, benchmarking SOI plays a key role in Quality Improvement (QI) efforts such as Clinical Documentation Improvement (CDI) programs.

Letter to the Editor, The Authors Reply: "Cost and Utility of Thrombophilia Testing".

We thank Dr. Berse and colleagues for their correspondence about our paper. We are pleased they agreed with our conclusion: Thrombophilia testing has limited clinical utility in most inpatient settings.