A National Coding Standard
Why is a national coding standard needed?
Of course there are accepted rules for applying codes to documents, rules that you learned as part of your training and are incorporated in widely available software packages. But these rules do not offer much guidance in interpreting actual documents. Because people have different styles of expressing themselves and are more or less precise in what they say, it can make the job of applying codes to documents challenging to the say the least!
By playing The Coding Game, you are helping to create a database of documents where there will be widespread agreement on their interpretation. This database can then be used by hospitals and other medical institutions to train and evaluate coders and to evaluate computer-assisted coding software.
The end result? Higher quality and more accurate coding for patients and hospitals.