HIT - Health Information Technology

Course offers brief overview of medical terminology suitable for developing basic vocabulary. Content includes deciphering, building and understanding medical terms by studying their parts. (Course does not substitute for HIT 104.)

Course presents medical terminology through study of medical word roots, prefixes and suffixes. Focus on relationships among symptomatic, disease, and procedural terms.

Course offers comprehensive coverage of pharmacology as it relates to clinical documentation in the health record. Content includes medical terminology, drug classifications, therapeutic use in diseases and conditions, adverse effects and side effects.

Course provides an introduction to cancer registry organization and management. Emphasis is placed on the basic knowledge of the types and purpose of cancer registries, quality control activities, accreditation, standard-setting organizations, as well as the legal and ethical issues surrounding a cancer registry.

Course covers the international classification system required to organize medical information for retrieval and reporting. Focus is on both the disease classification system and the procedure classification system. Work focuses on acquiring skills in coding diseases and procedures and abstracting medical data. Hands-on experience in coding inpatient and outpatient records.

Course provides an in-depth picture of the systematic processes used in the daily operations of a cancer registry. These processes include identification of cases, coding, maintaining quality, as well as lifetime follow-up and the role these elements plays in providing data for analysis. The focus will be on case eligibility requirements for state and national standards as well as the voluntary standards for accredited cancer programs of the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer (ACOS/CoC). The importance of cancer committees, cancer conferences and quality monitoring will be reviewed.

Course teaches students how to use the ICD-10-CM coding system to assign diagnostic codes to patient-physician encounters. Work focuses on acquiring skills in coding diseases and conditions. After learning the basic steps in code selection, the class concentrates on applying this skill to the physician practice setting.

Course presents anatomy and physiology through an anatomic overview and basic knowledge of body organs, body systems and disease pathology for coding within the ICD-10-CM coding system.

Course provides in-depth study of Medicare insurance system. Focus is on knowledge of terminology and guidelines involved in claim filing process. Topics also include understanding of Medicare reimbursement policies, appeal rights, and CMS’s current efforts to curtail healthcare fraud and abuse.

Introductory course gives instruction in health records and insurance processing procedures in the medical office. Focus is on correlating health information with billing procedures.

Course presents in-depth study of the Evaluation and Management section of CPT coding system. Based on knowledge of key definitions required in Evaluation and Management coding. Focus on auditing documentation and validating code selection. Includes discussion of categories of service, modifier usage, and payment methodologies.

Course examines health information management profession, healthcare delivery systems, health information functions, purpose, and users, health record content and documentation, data management, secondary data sources, overview of legal issues in health information management, data privacy and confidentiality and healthcare statistics.

Course defines cancer and how it develops and spreads. Students will learn about the many types of cancer and how to classify these tumors utilizing globally recognized codes. Instruction on the different references which are used to assign codes for topography, morphology and extent of disease will be explored. Two major staging systems will be examined, The American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) TNM Stage and Collaborative Stage. An overview of historical staging systems will be included as a reference for students.

Course provides introduction to medical science. Content includes study of nature and cause of disease, patient screening, diagnostic methods, treatment, and management of patients, as well as prognosis and prevention along with practical application of knowledge by health information management professional.

Course concentrates on mastery of guidelines and requirements for efficient and compliant healthcare claims filing. Content includes advanced coding scenarios that incorporate proper diagnosis and procedure code selection, correct modifier usage, appropriate HCPCS code utilization, surgical package billing concepts, and accurate analysis of claims. Current issues and new guidelines also incorporated.

Course covers oncology treatment and coding including an overview of nomenclature and classification systems. Importance is placed on major sites of cancer, diagnostic and staging procedures, treatment modalities, clinical trials and research protocols. American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) staging, SEER summary staging, and extent of disease concepts used by physicians and cancer surveillance organizations to determine treatment and survival will be emphasized.

Course surveys sources and uses of health data in the United States. Content includes collection of data, commonly used computations in healthcare, and the presentation and reporting of data. Function and use of registries with emphasis on Tumor Registry studied.

Course is designed to introduce and apply the principles of cancer registry abstracting. Identification and selection of appropriate clinical information from medical records in a manner consistent with cancer registration regulatory core data requirements will be emphasized. Upon completion, student should be able to record, code, and stage site-specific cancer information as well as perform quality control edits to abstracted information to assure timeliness, completeness and accuracy of data.

Course introduces cancer patient follow-up methodology and processes used to obtain follow-up cancer information regarding disease status, recurrence information, subsequent treatment and development of subsequent primary cancers. The use of follow-up information within the cancer registry and healthcare organization is also reviewed. An introduction to cancer statistics with an emphasis placed on descriptive and analytic epidemiology, cancer surveillance, annual report preparation, and usefulness of statistical cancer data in a healthcare organization will be reviewed. Upon completion, students should be able to demonstrate an understanding of physician and other follow-up resources and activities.

Course covers basic principles and guidelines of CPT coding in both hospital-based and ambulatory care environments. Students develop skills in using CPT to report reimbursable services.

Course covers health information systems used in health care delivery systems including terminology and essential concepts of health information systems. An overview of administrative and clinical information systems is given. Course covers phases of system development life cycle and structure of electronic health record (EHR). Content includes overview of health care industry’s transitioning to electronic health record systems, components of EHR, certified EHR technology, benefits of EHR, along with privacy and security issues affecting access to and use of patient information. Students are introduced to data analytics and healthcare informatics. Course also covers database design, standards for HIT, and health information exchange. Students practice with software applications common to a healthcare setting.

Course provides supervised hands-on clinical experience in all aspects of cancer registry organization and operation. Experience will include but not be limited to all facets of coding and abstracting of cancer data, data collection, follow-up processes, and quality assurance activities. Students will have exposure to cancer committee functions as well as cancer conferences. Upon completion, students should be able to apply cancer information management theory to cancer registry practices and standards. Students have the status of learner and shall not be considered agency employees, nor do they replace employed staff. Clinical practice is conducted as a non-paid laboratory experience under the direct supervision of a cancer tumor registrar and will include experiences in all eight National Cancer Registrars Association (NCRA) educational components.

Course focuses on quality improvement and assessment in variety of healthcare settings. Content includes implementation of quality tools and techniques as related to health information department activities of acute care hospitals, long term care facilities, behavioral health settings, hospital outpatient and emergency departments, and ambulatory care settings, and quality issues related to medical staff activities.

Course provides comprehensive study of the concepts of healthcare supervision and management and the fundamentals of law for health information management. Content includes the functions of management: planning, organizing, staffing, influencing, and controlling. Legal topics include: law and ethics, legal proceedings, tort law, legal health record: maintenance, content, documentation, and disposition, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy and Security Rules, access, use and disclosure and release of health information, and required reporting and mandatory disclosure laws.

Course examines complex areas of International Classification of Disease (ICD) and Current Procedural Coding (CPT) utilizing patient records from a wide variety of healthcare settings. Makes extensive use of encoder software and electronic coding references. Explores coding quality and compliance, regulatory issues, and revenue cycle considerations.

Course contains health information Professional Practice Experience (PPE) in a variety of healthcare facilities and other health information related organizations. Opportunity to gain knowledge and skill in health information and health information-related functions such as: healthcare regulatory, billing and reimbursement, and utilization of related software.

Course provides comprehensive study of healthcare reimbursement methodologies, commercial health insurance plans, government-sponsored healthcare programs and managed care plans. Focus is on Medicare-Medicaid prospective payment systems for inpatients and post-acute care patients and other systems for ambulatory patients. Emphasis is on role of clinical coding and coding compliance, revenue cycle management and value-based purchasing.

Course focuses on new issues in fast changing health information management environment. Topics covered each semester will vary based on current issues and perceived student need. Course may be repeated three times as long as specific topic is different. Fee Varies. Prerequisite may vary by topic.