Welcome to the RAC ‘Hunger Games’ Part 2

on June 14th, 2012   by Kim Felix

- Cerebrovascular Accident as principal diagnosis

Your documentation is clear, your neurologist has stated where the CVA is and exactly what deficits remain, however, the RACs are digging a little deeper.   They want to see confirmation of a stroke or CVA on a CT or MRI of the brain.  Take note of your CVA vs TIA MS-DRGs.   A way to avoid audits altogether is to run a report on patients with a low LOS (<3 days) with a CVA coded as principal diagnosis.  Make sure this is correct and the patient did not actually have a TIA.