Role Description As our Lead Inpatient Coder, you will be a cornerstone of our medical coding department, providing essential leadership and strategic direction for our inpatient coding team. You will be instrumental in driving coding accuracy, ensuring regulatory compliance, and optimizing revenue cycle performance for complex medical cases, making a direct impact on our healthcare data integrity and financial health. Every day you will: - Provide expert technical guidance. - Conduct comprehensive quality oversight. - Perform complex coding audits. - Collaborate with clinical and revenue cycle teams to enhance documentation and streamline processes. - Mentor, train, and foster the professional growth of coding staff. - Ensure adherence to the highest coding standards and best practices. To be successful in this role, you will possess: - Advanced inpatient coding credentials (e.g., CCS, RHIA, RHIT). - Extensive experience with DRG methodologies. - A deep understanding of official coding guidelines. - Exceptional leadership, communication, and analytical skills. - A passion for quality improvement and team development in health information management (HIM). Your key responsibilities will include: - Leading and mentoring a team of inpatient coders, serving as the primary point of contact for guidance, support, and complex issue resolution. - Applying expert-level coding knowledge to accurately assign and validate ICD-10-CM/PCS codes and MS-DRGs for complex inpatient cases. - Ensuring coding quality and compliance through routine reviews, identification of trends, and support of internal and external audit activities. - Collaborating cross-functionally with CDI, Quality, Case Management, and Revenue Integrity teams to resolve documentation and coding discrepancies. - Driving continuous improvement by providing one-on-one feedback, developing educational materials, and promoting best practices among coders. - Contributing to operational efficiency by tracking productivity, reporting quality trends, and supporting process optimization initiatives. Qualifications - RHIT or RHIA certification. - Associate's degree in health information management or related field. - 3-5 years of inpatient facility coding experience in an acute-care hospital setting. - Advanced knowledge of ICD-10-CM/PCS, MS-DRGs, UHDDS, and Official Coding Guidelines. - Strong analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills. - Proficiency with encoder and EMR systems. - Ability to provide constructive feedback and coach peers effectively. Requirements - CCS certification (preferred). - Bachelor's degree (preferred). - Prior experience as a lead, mentor, trainer, or auditor (preferred). - Experience with complex surgical cases and high-acuity medical records (preferred). - Prior inpatient coding audit or CDI collaboration experience (preferred). - Experience supporting remote or vendor-based coding teams (preferred). - Familiarity with productivity standards, DNFC management, and revenue cycle metrics (preferred).

• Accurately assigning diagnosis and procedure codes to inpatient discharges • Keeping abreast of new coding developments • Possess knowledge and experience for accurate code assignment • Coding Obstetrics, Newborn and Behavioral Health encounters when assigned • Querying physicians for unclear documentation • Working with Clinical Documentation Specialists for optimal DRG assignment • Maintaining department productivity standards with 95% accuracy • Other duties as assigned

• The Senior Inpatient Coder is responsible for accurately assigning diagnosis and procedure codes to inpatient discharges at the larger McLeod Health facilities representing more complex medical/surgical encounters. • Keeps abreast of all new coding developments by attending any coding classes, reading articles on coding updates, and attending seminars when available. • Possess inpatient coding knowledge and experience necessary to accurately assign codes to determine correct principal diagnosis, identify and assign co-morbidities and complications, secondary diagnoses, present on admission indicator, discharge disposition, Hospital Acquired conditions, principal procedure, and secondary procedures on all discharged inpatient records to arrive at the most appropriate DRG assignment. • Understands coding guidelines to accurately apply coding principles to encounters with longer lengths of stay, complex medical diagnoses and extensive surgical procedures. This includes cardiac, neurosurgery, orthopedic, pediatric, trauma, and vascular. • Queries physicians appropriately when documentation is not clear in the medical record. • Works closely with the Clinical Documentation Specialists to assure the most optimal DRG is assigned. • Maintains department specific productivity standards with a 95% accuracy rate. • Performs other duties as assigned.

• Proficient in medical software, insurance websites, and EHR systems (Elation or Candid preferred) • Verify patient eligibility and benefits including coordination of benefits • Identify and resolve claims processing issues, including pre-submission errors, and generate appeals or reprocess claims as needed • Communicate effectively with patients, physicians, management, staff, and third-party representatives • Contact insurance payers for eligibility, claims resolution, and authorization requests • Submit medical records to insurance when needed • Review and audit patient accounts for accuracy • Maintain compliance with professional standards, company policies, and federal, state, and HIPAA regulations • Manage a high volume of claims, calls, chats, and tasks while meeting productivity and quality standards • Respond promptly to all calls, chats, and voicemails during business hours • Maintains positive and optimistic attitude • Ensure timely completion of daily tasks • All other duties as assigned