Mary Mills, RHIT, CCS

Mary Mills, RHIT, CCS, President and CEO of Documentation Solutions, LLC, has over 20 years experience in the healthcare field as an ICD-9-CM Certified Coding Specialist, Documentation Deficiency Quality Auditor, Coding Consultant and Educator.  She has participated in the origination and implementation of several successful Clinical Physician Documentation Improvement Programs for healthcare delivery systems in Southeastern Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania.

Mary can design and customize a Clinical Documentation Improvement Program (CDIP) specific to your facility's needs to capture reimbursement that could be lost from lack of medical record documentation.  She can also educate physicians on how to gain and maintain the skill of documentation by following government guidelines and learning the benefits of effective communication with coders.

Mary can educate seasoned coders or nursing staff on how to implement and maintain a CDIP by learning how to perform a concurrent quality review of the medical record for complete and specific documentation to accurately reflect the patient's severity of illness and intensity of service.  This will assure the appropriateness in Medicare severity diagnostic-related group (MS-DRG) assignment that should positively impact the hospitals case mix index (CMI), so that the hospital is reimbursed properly for utilizing their resources to treat their patients.

Mary conducts workshops and seminars for coders, physicians, and other healthcare personnel reinforcing documentation and coding guidelines mandated by the state.  She promotes that coder and physician communication are key to preventing documentation deficiencies.  Mary served as an Advisor to the Financial Leadership Council for some of the content in their book called "Enfranchising Physicians in Documentation" published by the Advisory Board Company in Washington, D.C.  She is also the author of the following publications:

• "2007 DRG Workbook", "2008 MS-DRG Workbook", and "2009 MS-DRG Workbook" published by Documentation Solutions, LLC

• "Get Coders involved in Documentation Improvement" published by HCPro Inc. in the Briefings on Coding Compliance Strategies Newsletter in September 2005.

• Co-author of "Coders are Key to Documentation Solutions" published by Advance Magazine on 10/27/03 and presently serves on their Coding Panel of Experts.

Mary is an active member of the following organizations:

• American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) - Speaker 2005

• Michigan Health Information Management Association (MHIMA) - Speaker 2006 (currently a corporate member and on the Nominations Committee).

• Southeastern Michigan Health Information Management Association (SEMHIMA) - Currently President-elect, Speaker 2005, 2006, 2007, and served as the Educational Chair, Elections Committee Chair, Vice President, and Director.