The Psychology Behind Why Physicians Undercode

For this Compliance Conversations episode, I’ve got a special treat for you: Dr. Ira Specter. He spent many years as a practicing OBGYN physician and is also a certified coder and medical auditor. After practicing medicine for a few decades he went on to run a large medical management company, where they did billing collection, coding, compliance, and ICC10 courses for sixty-five physicians. Because of his unique perspective, we tackled bridging the gap between coding and auditing and physician documentation. I asked Dr. Specter, “what’s the biggest area for improvement for physician documentation?” After a brief pause, he said, “Let me start by saying, by and large, most physicians are under coding.” It seems, according to Specter, that physicians are “cutting off their own legs,” and also “cherry picking” codes. What does that mean?Listen to this episode to find out what Dr. Specter views as the biggest mistakes physicians are currently making and learn: What Coders/Auditors Should Look Out For in Physicians DocumentationWhy Physicians Should Never Cherry Pick CodesThe Pitfalls of Copying and Cloning.Thank you for listening! Please share, like, and subscribe.If you'd like to see more compliance and auditing content feel free to follow us on social media.LinkedInYoutubeFacebookInstagramCheck out our resource center and weekly compliance newsletter for additional compliance and auditing content from our experts.