Evaluating the Impact of Clinical Documentation on Case Mix Index Instructions:

Evaluating the Impact of Clinical Documentation on Case Mix Index
Instructions: Assume that you are responsible for calculating the Case Mix Index (CMI) for your hospital’s inpatient stays at the end of each month. You report the data to the hospital’s administration and they utilize this information for financial forecasting related to resource intensity and patient acuity. Fluctuations in the CMI resulted in the implementation of a clinical documentation improvement (CDI) project. The purpose of this project was to improve the documentation in order to obtain an accurate understanding of the patient’s being treated by your facility and resource need. The hospital’s administration opted to measure the value of the CDI project by assessing CMI. They were hoping to find an increase in the CMI with improvements to documentation.
In 3-4 paragraphs, summarize the following:
Importance of CMI on hospital finances
Relationship between quality documentation and CMI
Limitations with using CMI for assessing documentation improvement efforts
Recommendations for alternative measures for assessing CDI impact