New Relias Platform Helps Acute Care Providers Maximize Revenue

Courses focus on data quality to improve claims processes, staff performance, and patient care

Relias, a trusted partner to more than 11,000 healthcare organizations and 4.5 million caregivers, today announced the launch of a new suite of educational products to help acute care providers more efficiently navigate the revenue cycle, including the complicated and fast-changing world of billing codes.

The Relias Revenue Cycle and Coding curriculum is among the most comprehensive in the market, with more than 700 lessons covering the complete revenue cycle —  from the first interaction with a patient all the way through to when there is a $0 balance on a claim.

The curriculum, formerly known as Educode Coding and EduCode CDI education, focuses on data quality and driving optimal staff performance, faster claim submissions and reduced denials, improved productivity and cashflow, accurate reimbursements, precise quality rankings, and improved patient care transition.

“With this portfolio, Relias offers the education acute care providers need to ensure complete and accurate reimbursement and avoid the all-too-common and often prolonged billing disputes, denied claims, and incorrect payments that can result from coding errors,” said Ross Golden, Chief Financial Officer at Relias.

Every year, ICD-10 and the American Medical Association update and change the industry-standard billing codes, resulting in what can be thousands of changes to the coding systems. COVID-19 has added to the complexities, resulting in a host of new telemedicine codes as well as new testing, vaccination, and treatment codes. Given the highly complex and ever-changing regulatory environment, clinical documentation integrity (CDI) expertise is crucial for the long-term financial health and stability of healthcare organizations. Yet, 98.5% of CDI programs identified providers that could benefit from improvements in documentation practices.

In 2019, a Medicare audit found more than $28.9 billion in overpayments to health care providers, many of which were due to improper coding, insufficient documentation, and medical necessity errors.

“The best way to avoid overpayments, claims disputes, and denials is to get the coding right the first time. Relias Revenue Cycle and Coding curriculum covers all of these areas, including courses on denial management,” said Barbara Nelson Cullen, Senior Product Manager at Relias.

The new curriculum provides a lifetime of professional learning by offering both new and experienced professionals the opportunity to expand their knowledge and skills while earning continuing education credits to support credentials through a variety of accrediting bodies, such as the American Academy of Professional Coders, (AAPC) and the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA.)

The more than 700 targeted, self-paced, introductory to advanced lessons were written using credential subject matter experts and have all been peer-reviewed.

Course offerings include Finance and Revenue Cycle, Coding, Risk Adjustment, Clinical Documentation Improvement, HIPAA and Corporate Compliance, Human Body Essentials and Medical Terminology.