Central Learning Releases 4th Annual Nationwide ICD-10 Coder Performance Data

CENTER VALLEY, Pa., Sept. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Central Learning, a web-based coding assessment and education application, released the results of the 4th annual nationwide ICD-10 coding contest. Central Learning is part of the Pena4, Inc. suite of health information and revenue cycle technology solutions for healthcare organizations.

Manny Peña, RHIA, Founder and CEO of Pena4, Inc., announced today that Kristin Iovino from Lexington, Massachusetts, received $1,000 for achieving the highest average accuracy and productivity scores for outpatient cases. 

This year's contest focused on outpatient coding performance to address some of the challenges associated with the surge in outpatient reimbursement, coding errors and claim denials, with the goal of helping HIM, coding and revenue cycle teams pinpoint opportunities for improvement.

Four years of coding contests have resulted in over 10,000 real medical record cases using Central Learning, a real-time, online coder assessment tool for HIM. Coders chose de-identified cases based on their areas of coding specialty. Once coded, participants' cases were electronically graded against Central Learning's standardized answer keys to remove any bias or human intervention.

"We are honored to provide the industry's only analytical glimpse into coder accuracy and productivity," said Peña. "Central Learning scored over 4,000 cases in a matter of minutes, a vast amount of ICD-10 benchmarking data. The contest results are intriguing and we look forward to further data analysis focused on coder skill gaps, areas of improvement and financial impact."

Key findings include average outpatient scores by years of experience:

• Under 5 years              25.46%
• Over 5 Years               45.81%
• Over 10 Years             52.32%
• Over 20 years              60.76%
• Over 30 Years             62.24%
• Overall PDX Accuracy 60.5%
• Overall SDX Accuracy 38.6%

A graph of average outpatient accuracy scores between 2016 and 2019 can be viewed here. For full contest results and more detailed information, visit Booth #902 at the 2019 AHIMA Health Data and Information Conference or request information online at www.centrallearning.com/codingcontest.

About Central Learning
Central Learning is a web-based application that utilizes real medical cases and actual clinical documentation—versus hypothetical coding scenarios and traditional check-the-box tests. Central Learning assesses an organization's progress with ICD-10 coding quality and productivity without the need for expensive, manual and labor-intensive coding audits. For more information, visit www.centrallearning.com.

About Pena4 Inc.
Pena4 Inc. offers comprehensive revenue integrity solutions for coding services, revenue integrity auditing services, revenue cycle consulting, clinical revenue applications and business process management. Backed by a company with 20 years of healthcare experience and coding know-how, we increase documentation integrity, improve clinical coding and help customers overcome new reimbursement challenges under value-based care and quality payment programs. For more information, visit www.pena4.com.

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SOURCE Central Learning