Region C Fall Meeting – Registration Open

Registration is open for the MHIMA Region C Fall Meeting to be held October 26, 2017 at Minnesota State Community and Technical College, 1900 28th Ave S, Moorhead, MN  – Room A117 & A119. 

Registration Link and Agenda

ICD-10-CM/PCS or CPT coding cases/questions for the Coding Roundtable session should be sent to Becky.DeSautel. Cases must be de-identified with your coding question/suggested codes clearly marked. 

Click here to view a map of MHIMA’s Region C or here to see which counties fall into Region C.   Members include active members of MHIMA who reside or work in the Region C area. MHIMA members from other regions are welcome to attend, along with non-MHIMA members. 

Business Meeting:

Nominations/volunteers will be requested for VP/Treasurer and for the Nominating Committee.  
Members will be asked to vote on additional proposed amendments to the Bylaws recommended by the MHIMA attorney.  

Parking is by permit only. Registrants will receive a parking permit along with other handouts closer to the meeting.  

Looking forward to seeing you at the meeting on October 26!  

Cindy Norling, CCS-P, COC
Region C President

Upcoming Flex-Supported Coding Webinars

The AHIMA Membership and Business Engage Community is your opportunity to see where candidates stand on various issues.  Beginning Wednesday, July 5, 2017 – 9:00 a.m. CT through Friday, July 28, 2017 – 5:00 p.m. CT, members will be able to interact with the 2017 AHIMA Ballot Candidates.    

Members of the 2017 AHIMA Nominating Committee, CEE Nominating Committee, CCHIIM Commissioners, and CEE Council Members will be the facilitators for this Community.  Community discussions will be created for each position on the ballot.  Be sure to select the community discussion forum, i.e., “President/Chair-elect, Director, CCHIIM Commissioners, CEE Members or and All Candidates.” After you have selected the forum, click on the title to be placed in the discussion area.

Ballot Candidates are encouraged to focus on their knowledge, experience and opinion on these discussions.  Any member or candidate may initiate discussion in the established threads.   The AHIMA Membership and Business Engage Community threads will be open until Friday, July 28, 2017 – 5:00 p.m. CT.  After the discussions end, the topics will be closed to future postings.  As a reminder, the polls will open on Monday, July 31, 2017 – 8:00 a.m. CT thru Monday, August 14, 2017 – 5:00 p.m. CT.

AHIMA Business and Membership Engage

State Leaders and House of Delegates Engage

Candidates running for Speaker-elect of the House have a discussion forum housed on the State Leaders and House of Delegates Community.  The forum is available July 5 through July 28^th.  Voting will take place by the 2017-18 House of Delegates beginning August 7, 2017 (8:00 a.m. CT) through August 18, 2017 (5:00 p.m. CT).

Just a reminder the NDHIMA Board of Directors election ends May 15th. The link below will take you right to the ballot to cast your vote. You will need your AHIMA ID or email and your password.

Vote Now!

Don’t Delay! Cast your vote today!

Click here to learn more.

Click here to read more.

Click here to read more

If you are not getting emails from NDHIMA to include group emails as well as the Newsletters, it may be due to firewalls that are preventing you from receiving them. Please consider updating your information on the AHIMA website with your personal email address.

Thank you!

The 2017 NDHIMA Fall Conference is scheduled for September 14-15, 2017 at the Hilton Garden Inn, Fargo, ND. Be sure to add this to your calendars!

Click here to view

President’s Message – Fall 2016

Kim Thompson, MS, RHIA
NDHIMA President 2016-2017

“Inspire Big Thinking to Launch Our Future….”

This was the theme for the AHIMA Leadership Symposium held recently in Chicago and is also the theme for the upcoming 2016 National Convention in Baltimore, MD. This theme rings true in our roles as HIM professionals from small to large organizations. We are constantly tasked with thinking outside of the box to do more with less or finding creative ways to complete projects in areas that go beyond the traditional HIM role. When I started out in the profession, I never dreamed that my career would take me from working in a large teaching hospital, to traveling the country as an HIM consultant, to eventually working in a large county jail that housed a thousand inmates. I continue to be excited and passionate about our profession and look forward to serving as your president. As a board, we look forward to speaking with members to understand what we as an association can do to serve and meet your needs. Two areas of focus for the upcoming year are education and membership. How can we educate as many members possible at our annual conference and in what ways can association membership be increased? Some of you may have recently received a call from one of the board members asking about barriers to attending the annual conference and whether we can do anything different to increase attendance. We want to provide members with up to date information about topics relevant in the industry and profession and are open to new ideas to help accomplish this.

Let’s “think BIG” and launch our future together by attending the upcoming NDHIMA Annual Conference September 22-23, 2016 in Bismarck. Please click here for more details about the conference.

I look forward to seeing you there!

Kim Thompson, MS, RHIA

Click here to view

Click here to review

Deb Boppre, MSM, RHIA, CCS, CCS-P, FAHIMA has been elected to the position of Chair-elect for AHIMA”s Commission on Certification for Health Information and Informatics Management (CCHIIM). The Commission manages and sets the strategic direction for all of the certifications within AHIMA. Ms. Boppre’s term will begin January of 2016 and run through December of 2018. Ms. Boppre is currently the Enterprise HIM Director at Trinity Health in Minot, ND. See the link for more information on the activities and responsibilities of CCHIIM

Click here for more information

Mark your calendars!

Fall Conference to be held September 22 – 23, 2016

Location: Radisson Hotel in Bismarck, ND

More Information to come as the date approaches!

Learn More

What a fantastic profession we belong to!

As I have been thinking about what to write in my President’s message I got to thinking about how I literally stumbled into the Health Information Management (HIM) field. I was 25 years old, recently divorced, and had two small children to raise.  I did not know anything at that time about medical records other than Dolly an LPN at the nursing home where I was working worked with medical records and “charting”.  My main objective due to my circumstances was to find a good job where I could support my children.  I also thought I was too old to go to college for 4 years so decided to see what Northwest Technical College in Moorhead (M-State today) had to offer and they had a two (2) year Medical Records Technician program (remember when an RHIT was an ART?) where you also got an associate degree at the same time through Moorhead State College. Being Dolly really seemed to enjoy her job and I wanted to stay in the healthcare field I applied and was accepted into the program.  I have never once regretted my decision.

Words cannot express how proud and honored I am to be the President of NDHIMA.  I also served as President in 2000-2001.  One thing I know for sure is change is a constant in the HIM profession. HIM professionals need to be very resourceful and adapt to any situation. I still believe that HIM is the gatekeeper for health information in any form (paper, hybrid, electronic).  We are the experts for privacy and security (HIPAA), quality, and state/federal accrediting and regulatory requirements.  HIM professionals are also the leaders when it comes to coding and reimbursement.  With all the changes that I have seen over the years I just do not want HIM professionals in our state to get overlooked or that we lose sight of what we can do for our organizations.

AHIMA at the last two leadership symposiums that were held in Chicago and at the national convention in San Diego last year the theme has been “HIM without Walls”. To me this is a reality as there are HIM departments that literally do not have walls and have needed to down size due to the electronic health record and have even outsourced some or all of their HIM functions.  Regardless how difficult this can be we should look at these challenges as an opportunity and ask ourselves, “Where can I help and/or be a leader for my organization?”  Information governance and data analytics are just two examples where I feel HIM professionals can really make a difference and excel in these areas.

ICD-10 is almost here and with all the hard work and training that has been done I feel that we are in an excellent position to be successful.  I am looking forward to October!

The NDHIMA Board serves and represents the members of NDHIMA.  This year I am looking forward to hearing from our membership and what is important to you.  Please take the time to think about the following questions and let any of the NDHIMA Board members know your suggestions and ideas.

1. What should NDHIMA stop doing?
2. What should NDHIMA start doing?
3. What should NDHIMA continue doing?

We have planned a great agenda for the first NDHIMA Annual Fall Conference that will be held in Fargo this week.  I am looking forward to seeing everyone!

Becky DeSautel, RHIT, CCS
NDHIMA President 2015-2016

Greetings NDHIMA Members!

I hope that you all are having a fantastic summer. One of my teacher friends reminded me a couple of days ago that school starts in 1 month! I am sure some of you are excited about this as your children draw closer to the “I’m bored” stage and are constantly asking what they can do……and some of you are dreading that as much as I am, because it means summer is over and for me, it means I am a mere 2 school years away from being an empty nester! Sigh…… In either case it also means that we have had our annual NDHIMA Board Changeover. The 2014-2015 NDHIMA board had their final meeting in Fargo on June 5th and welcomed our incoming board for the 2015-2016 term. So I am writing to you today as NDHIMA’s Past President, and I am not sure where the years went! It feels like I JUST returned from my first Leadership Summit in Chicago with Geralyn as President and I as President Elect, hard to believe that was two years ago already! We have many new faces that will be taking the reigns to lead our organization through all things coming to the HIT world in the next years to come. The board will be led by 2015-2016 President Becky DeSautel. Becky has been with NDHIMA for several years and has served on the board previously. We were all overjoyed last year when she decided to once again be a part of the board. Welcome back Becky!

The last year was full of challenges for many of us as we rebounded from the news of the ICD-10 delay and had to decide how to move forward with planning and preparations for a new implementation date. Our organization also had a decision to make due to the delay. We determined that delaying our training sessions was in the best interest of the organization, which unfortunately meant we incurred some expenses with the cancellation. I am happy to say that we were able to recoup the majority of that loss and provide 2 very well attended training sessions this spring due in part to a SHIP grant that we were awarded through the UND Center for Rural Health. This was a great thing for us to recover from the ICD-10 delay aftermath! This too has passed and we are looking forward to October 1st!

I have genuinely enjoyed serving as NDHIMA’s President for the 2014-2015 term and am anxiously awaiting to hear all of the new and wonderful things our 2015-2016 board has in store for us! Thank you all for your support and continued participation with NDHIMA. Each and every one of you matters and makes a difference to our organization and to our profession! Thank you!!

I am looking forward to seeing all of you in September for our first ANNUAL Conference in Fargo. It is going to be an action packed 2 FULL days and I am anxious to be a part of it. I will also be starting my first order of business as Past President, looking for volunteers that would like to be a part of our board!

I know there are many of you that would do a fantastic job and we would love to have your expertise, so please consider this and you will hear much more about the open positions and how to nominate yourself or someone interested at the conference and in the months ahead.

Thank you all for a fantastic year and may NDHIMA have many more to come!

Tracey Regimbal, RHIT
NDHIMA’s Past President 2015-2016

Click here to learn more!

Greetings NDHIMA Members!

I am extremely honored and excited to be serving as President of NDHIMA for 2014-2015. As I began my term on July 1, 2014, I felt much anticipation of producing a year filled with positive change, rejuvenation and growth of our members! We have had many wonderful leaders of NDHIMA over the 20+ years I have been a part of the organization and I am going to have some big shoes to fill, but I am no different than the rest of you HIM professionals – I LOVE a challenge!

My role as President will be supported by a wonderful NDHIMA Board. To use a quote from John Heywood, “Many hands make light work”, I know our 2014-2015 board is ready to put their hands in and participate for the good of all of our members! Most of us had the opportunity to come together in June for our annual changeover meeting to transition our board positions and have a short board meeting. It was a nice opportunity to meet the new board, thank the outgoing board and begin planning for 2014-2015.

Our new board members include; Becky DeSautel, President-Elect and Kim Thompson, Secretary.

Returning board members in new roles include; Geralyn Matejcek, Outgoing President & Nominating Committee; Patti Kritzberger, State Advocacy Coordinator.

Other returning board members include; Linda Adams and Stacie Traeger, Education; Larissa Stein, Membership/Newsletter; and Mary Heggen, Treasurer.

I would also like to thank our outgoing board members that served for the last term; Sheryl Terry, Secretary and Laurie Peters, State Advocacy Coordinator. Their efforts are so appreciated! I am pretty sure Sheryl wins the award for Best Secretary (EVER!) There are no words for how organized and efficient that lady is! And Laurie, despite all of her business travels and tremendous work responsibilities she has, she kept us up to date on legislative issues at hand throughout her term. Thank you both for all you have done for NDHIMA, your efforts have moved us towards becoming a better organization.

Also, special thanks to Geralyn for being a top notch President for the 2013-2014 term. She helped our board trudge through updates of bylaws, policies and procedures and got us up to date on many a things that most of us rarely find the time to do. She also updated our Strategic Plan to align with a variety of important activities going on in the state that further introduces our profession to other organizations working on similar tasks in ND. Along with having to make many important and tough decisions that came along with the ICD-10 delay and changing meeting frequency. Thank you Geralyn for a fantastic year and for paving the way to allow NDHIMA to make some positive changes, rejuvenate and grow in 2014-2015!

We have a GREAT year ahead!

For starters, SAVE THE DATE – September 18 & 19, 2014 is the NDHIMA Fall Conference at the Hilton Garden Inn in Fargo. There is currently a block of 40 rooms reserved for the conference until August 28th. The price of the room is $129.00. To make a reservation call 1-800-HILTONS.

I would love to see our attendance be a record breaker. Our membership has grown over the last couple of years and it would be fantastic to see you all there and have the opportunity to network and learn together! Our agenda is getting full and it will be shared as soon as it is finalized. If you have any ideas for topics or speakers for this conference or future conferences, please contact Linda Adams. We of course will have some ICD-10 on our agenda and amongst other things we also will be recognizing 2 distinguished NDHIMA members this year! It is going to be a great conference, so don’t miss out!

In addition to our conference in Fargo, the REACH program of MN & ND’s Regional Extension Center is going to be having a Privacy and Security Boot camp on September 17th in Fargo – come a day early to take them both in and save on travel expenses! Additional details will be distributed soon by REACH staff.

Speaking of conferences, this will be NDHIMA’s last year of two meetings per year before we begin a trial of an annual meeting. So also mark your calendars for the Spring NDHIMA 2015 Conference, which will be April 16th and 17th, 2015 at the Ramkota in Bismarck. There is currently a block of 30 rooms reserved for the conference until 3/16/15. The price of the room is $109.00. To make a reservation call 701-258-7700.

Other news –

Becky and I had the opportunity to attend the AHIMA Leadership Symposium in Chicago July 11 & 12. This is a two day session filled with meetings regarding leadership, strategic planning, CSA success stories and other relevant topics to our profession. We were able to hear about many exciting activities that AHIMA is working on and that we will incorporate into our NDHIMA Strategic Plan. We also obtained some good ideas for leading our CSA and engaging our existing members along with attracting new ones. We look forward to sharing these strategies & ideas and how they will be incorporated into our Strategic Plan with you at our Membership meeting at the Fall Conference.

Our ICD-10 committee is still meeting and working on plans to offer training in the coming year. We had the unfortunate delay that put our training plans for 2014 in a tail spin. But luckily our spirited ICD-10 Committee didn’t let that get them down, they will be trudging forth to bring you some really great educational opportunities in 2015, just in time for implementation in October (hopefully it’s October!?!?) We will keep you abreast of those sessions and locations as soon as they are finalized.

Last but not least, Becky and I will be attending the AHIMA National Convention Sept. 28th – Oct. 1. There are many fantastic presentations and opportunities to learn at this convention. If there are specific topic areas that you feel would be valuable for us to keep our eyes and ears open for, just let us know. There are many to pick from but we are very much interested in attending sessions that we can bring back valuable information that will benefit our membership whenever possible.

That’s all for now, stay tuned for a great year for NDHIMA.

I look forward to seeing you all September 18th in Fargo for our Fall Conference!

Tracey Regimbal, RHIT, CPHP
2014-2015 NDHIMA President

Click here to learn more.

Oppose Efforts to Delay ICD-10
Call, email or tweet your members of Congress today!

• We need the code sets in 2015!
• A recent GAO report supports ICD-10 readiness.
• Small physician practices are expected to spend between 1,900 and 6,000 to transition to the   new code set.  This is much lower than previous reports. The study can be found on www.coalitionforICD10.org

Webinar: Core Measures & Emerging Technology

Due to the popularity of our last Core Measure webinar, we will be running two instances of this program. Please pick the date that works best for your schedule.

Review of the challenges of Core Measures and other quality initiatives. Includes a demonstration of how technology can analyze your patient data in real-time to identify patient charts that fall into a measured population, randomly sample those charts, provide your abstractors with a tailored work list and track your census to provide you a daily dashboard that details your quarterly progress.

Participation in one of these live webinars will earn you 1 FREE AHIMA CEU.

Which date works best for you?

Friday, March 27, 2015 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM ET
Register Today!

Friday, April 24, 2015 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM ET
Register Today!

Register for other upcoming webinars:

Challenges in Clinical Documentation: Stories from the Front Line
Friday, May 29, 2015 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM ET
Register Today!

ICD-10 Testing: Industry Update & HIM’s Role
Friday, June 26, 2015 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM ET
Register Today!

Getting Ready for ICD-10: Analyzing Chart Documentation
Friday, July 24, 2015 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM ET
Register Today!

Click here to learn more.

Recently Dr. James Kennedy presented “The Current State of the POA Indicator for Measuring Hospital Quality” for the North Dakota Hospital Engagement Network and NDHIMA was graciously invited to attend.

Attached are the slides for the event which also contains Dr. Kennedy’s contact information should you have follow up questions or be interested in his services for your organization.

I hope you find the information helpful. Have a great day!

Click here to view slides.

Click here to learn more.

Click here to learn more.

1. Write your Members of Congress by using this link: http://capwiz.com/ahima/issues/alert/?alertid=63175786
2. View AHIMA’s “ICD-10: A Legislative Review” webinar and share the information with our colleagues. Link: http://cc.readytalk.com/play?id=curu7i

• AHIMA Advocacy Assistant: http://capwiz.com/ahima/home
  Let your legislators know how the delay affects you. Sample letters are available, however, encouraged to share the specific costs and efforts that you have made to prepare for ICD-10.
• Coalition for ICD-10 Members: http://coalitionforicd10.wordpress.com/

Denial Update – Claims that are Related

Call and write your legislators and ask them to support the October 1, 2015 compliance date for ICD-10

Take Action!

Call Congress and Oppose Delaying ICD-10 to 2017!

Oppose Efforts to Delay ICD-10 to 2017
Write Congress Today!

Support ICD-10 Implementation
Write Your Members of Congress

Oppose S.972, the Cutting Costly Codes Act
Contact Your US Senator

Oppose HR 1701, the Cutting Costly Codes Act
This bill would stop ICD-10 implementation

Most of you know Naomi Wanzek, who has been a member of NDHIMA for many, many years. She has been the HIM Director at the Jamestown Hospital since 1989. She has been fighting a courageous battle with pancreatic cancer. Naomi could not fight any longer and passed away Saturday, Oct.11th.

Her obituary can be found here: www.hautfuneralhome.com/fh/obituaries/obituary.cfm?o_id=2742134&fh_id=13198

Please keep her family and friends in your thoughts and prayers as we all grieve the loss of a wonderful wife, mother, daughter, friend and HIM colleague!

It is our pleasure to announce that one of our vital NDHIMA members, Deb Boppre, has been appointed to a 3 year term on AHIMA’s Commission on Certification for Health Informatics and Information Management (CCHIIM) Committee!

This is an exciting opportunity and an honor for someone from our state to be appointed to a very important national committee.

Deb has been a member of NDHIMA for many years, served in a variety of NDHIMA Board positions, served as the Lead of our ICD-10 Coding Committee for the last 4+ years and has a vast background and level of experience in the HIM field.

Congratulations Deb on a well deserved honor! We are confident that your skills, knowledge and expertise will reflect the needs and requirements on both a state and national level for HIM professionals.

W AY T O G O G I R L !

About AHIMA’s CCHIIM Committee:
The Commission on Certification for Health Informatics and Information Management (CCHIIM) is an AHIMA commission dedicated to assuring the competency of professionals practicing HIIM. CCHIIM serves the public by establishing, implementing, and enforcing standards and procedures for certification and recertification of HIIM professionals. CCHIIM provides strategic oversight of all AHIMA certification programs. Commissioners represent a broad spectrum of health informatics and information management professionals, and must be AHIMA-certified and meet certification, work experience, and leadership requirements in order to serve on the commission.

REACH – Advancing health information technology for Minnesota and North Dakota

REACH is announcing the launch of the new Privacy and Security Portal. This portal is designed to assist healthcare professionals and organizations in understanding the HIPAA privacy and security requirements as well as updates from the HIPAA Omnibus Rule of 2013. The Portal has a specific section for each of the components of the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rule to help guide and understand the different requirements.

The Omnibus Rule created additional provisions for the HIPAA privacy and security rule, which creates more mandates and safeguards to be used to protect patient information. The goal is to help support the quality of healthcare and the advancement of technology use in healthcare.

REACH Privacy and Security Portal

The Privacy and Security Portal has three main areas; HIPAA Privacy Rule, HIPAA Security Rule and HIPAA Omnibus Rule. Each features specific requirements.

Privacy Rule

• Minimum Necessary
• De-identification and Limited Data Set
• Uses and Disclosures
• Patient’s Rights
• Designated Record Set
• Administrative Requirements
• State Law Preemption

Security Rule

• Administrative Safeguards
• Physical Safeguards
• Technical Safeguards
• Organizational Requirements

Omnibus Rule

• Business Associates
• Breach Notification Rule
• Restrictions and Disclosures

NDHIMA Membership Director, Larissa Stein, RHIT, CCS will continue her board position for 2014-2015. Rhoda Lagerquist, RHIT, CAP, was elected to the position but is unable to assume the position at this time.