The Importance Of Ethical Coding In Health Care

Introduction of Coding Coding is best described as a process of using alphabetical and numerical values that are connected to clinical documentation that can identify a patients’ diagnosis and what procedures that were used during an encounter. Coding serves as a communication log to providers so that they can keep up with the payments that are received for each patient. There are several different types of coding in the health care industry. Such as, inpatient coding which is conducted while the patient is still in the hospital and concurrent coding which takes place while the patient is still in the hospital for an extended amount of time (Davis & LaCour, 2014).
Standards of Ethical Coding Standards of Ethical Coding was issued by the

As a member of this organization we had to conduct ourselves as a professional and we were expected to follow the ethical principles of professional conduct. To follow these guidelines, we were trained to recognize potentially unethical situations and to report them if necessary. When coding professionals participate in unethical coding it can affect the coding professional career, the health care organization that they are employed with, and the patient. In other words, coding violations that are considered unethical affects everyone at some point. It can delay reimbursements from insurance companies and in some cases, interfere with some patient receiving future treatment from their provider due to the fact the insurance company has denied the claim that was submitted due to the submission of incorrect codes for an encounter. Managers and supervisors should be aware of coders who have gotten comfortable in their position and prefer to use out of date guidelines and codes. Coding imperfection not only affect patient care but it hurts the organization the most by halting their reimbursements on those claims (Chapman, 2014). Personally, I believe that improperly coding will impact the health care organization, the integrity of their billing department and the creditability of their coders and their contracts with third party payers in the long run if the issues are not corrected in a timely