Clinical Documentation Improvement Specialist

Responsibilities:

• Daily record review for inpatient admissions to ensure the medical record accurately reflects the severity of illness and intensity of service, resulting in the appropriate MS-DRG assignment.
• Extensively collaborates with physicians, medical records coding staff, hospital administration, and other patient caregivers to improve accuracy and completeness of acute inpatient documentation.
• Completes education for all members of the patient care team on clinical documentation opportunities, hospital coding and/or reimbursement issues, as well as performance improvement methodologies.
• Conduct record reconciliation with hospital coding staff to assign a working DRG.
• Maintains thorough and current knowledge of clinical care and treatment of assigned patient populations to critically assess appropriateness of documentation.

Education/Background:

• Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Iowa
• Pharmacy Specialist Training from the U.S. Army Academy of Health Sciences, Ft Sam Houston, Texas

Hobbies/Special Interests:

• Collecting and listening various genres of music from the 1960’s through today and singing along regardless of who might be listening – my apologies to coworkers!
• Spending time with family – my wife Joy, two children and a dog named Max who runs the household.
• Traveling to different corners of America on the open road – seeing places along the way is half the experience!

Contact:

Address: C41-E GH
Phone: (319) 384-7118
Pager: 6709
damon-benedict@uiowa.edu

When asked, “What inspires you?”

“Nurses that make one of the most difficult jobs seem effortless.  Finding the “right” way of doing things and doing my best to follow that path.  Working in a career that affords me the opportunity to never stop learning.”