The Digestive System and Achalasia

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Achalasia has the potential to cost the healthcare system a lot of money. There is no cure for Achalasia, therefore this is something that needs to be treated, sometimes as often as every 3 months (Dugdale, George & Zieve, 2010). When my mother has the surgery to stretch her esophageal sphincter, the average cost of her surgery ranges from $1,900 to $3,000, depending on anesthetics and whether or not they need to suck out food that is stuck in the esophagus. Insurance pays the majority of the cost (Brown, 2013). Achalasia effects 1 out of every 100,000 people (Vaezi & Richter, 1999). It may not have a huge impact on the healthcare system, but usually people get achalasia is in their thirties and the average life expectancy is almost 79 years (CDC/National Center for Health Statistics, 2013). For 1 person, this is an average of 49 years of treatment and or surgeries, not to mention the other problems that accompany this disease, such as acid reflux.
This projects has helped me to learn about the digestive system and some of the different diseases that affect it. This information will help me as a medical billing and coding professional by allowing me to distinguish between the different body parts. For example, if I know someone has Achalasia and I am doing the billing, but I see that they are being billed for a procedure that has nothing to do with the digestive system, obviously a mistake has been made. Because I was able to catch the mistake before they were billed, I will have saved months of working to straighten the bill out with the patient and insurance companies. Understanding body systems and diseases will enable me to be a more efficient coder. I will be able to catch mistakes and know where to look for information. It ...

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...St. Louis: Elsevier/Mosby.
Spechler, S. (2013, July 12). Patient information: Achalasia (beyond the basics). Retrieved from http://www.uptodate.com/contents/achalasia-beyond-the-basics
U.S. National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute. (2008, November 21). Esophageal cancer (cancer of the esophagus). Retrieved from http://www.medicinenet.com/esophageal_cancer/article.htm
U.S. National Library of Medicine. (2012, April 18).Appendix b: Some common abbreviations. Retrieved from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/appendixb.html
Vaezi, M., & Richter, J. (1999). Diagnosis and management of achalasia. THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF GASTROENTEROLOGY, 94(12), Retrieved from http://www.cpgn.net/web/uploadfile/2010/1207/20101207030852383.pdf
Zieve, D., Eltz, D., & Vorvick, L. (2011, June 16).Malnutrition. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001441/

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