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Good Coding: Helps Your Agency Keep Its Revenue Bad Coding: Can Mean You Lose Your Revenue

Friday, May 17th, 2013

PPS has always meant that “close enough” isn’t good enough. A digit off can be costly. Coding to the highest level of specificity can be complex and confusing. CMS has published Coding Guidelines and the Coding Clinic remains the source document for any coding questions.   Per CMS and as per the Federal Register, “The  Coding Clinic by AHA is the US Official Clearinghouse for Coding.”

Agencies have hired coders, some are credentialed, some not.  All usually do not have audits of their coding compliance.  As a result, when asked, “Are you leaving dollars on the table?” most administrators pause.  Most acknowledge they believe their coding may be costing them at least $200-$400 per episode.  Why continue to lose dollars?

Agencies have usually decided to complete their coding themselves, but that is changing.  In the past, agencies have hired coders, certified or otherwise. Some coders are routinely reviewed and audited, most are not.  Most agencies rely on their coders. They put a portion of their financial welfare in the hands of unreviewed coders.  Lessen the worry regarding dollar loss and the quality of your agency coding by instilling specific processes. At the very least, contract for routine third party coding and billing audits.

If you were to use a third party coding firm, be certain they have external audits performed on their coding.  Quality third party coding firms should have quarterly internal audits and annual external audits completed in their firms. Who has audited them? What are the firm’s names?  Yes, the audits are an increase cost, but ar $e you losing 200-$400 per episode of care delivered? Are you flagging your firm for a RAC, MAC, or Z-PIC audit?

You should take a close look at the coding completed in your agency. Look at the use of case-mix diagnoses and at comorbidities. Down coding can be as costly as upcoding, just in different regulatory ways, if it brings on an audit. Have your ADRs increased? Do you know the number of codes used routinely in your firm? Do you know the top 10 diagnoses assigned?  How many of the present 16,000 codes are your coders using? How much will preparing for ICD-10 cost you?  Is a plan in place now? How strong is your coder in anatomy, physiology, diagnostics, and pharmacology? How many of the 68,000 codes will they use?

Experts know that much training is required for ICD-10. If you do not properly prepare, how much more will it cost you? Perhaps it really is time to consider a third party coding specialty firm.

Consider a firm that has experienced, highly credentialed coding specialists. Ask if they employ a full time coding internal auditor. Ask if they have weekly training sessions paid for by the coding firm to keep their coding specialists current. Ask if they have a full time Compliance Officer, a compliance committee, and have current program policies and procedures. Ask if the firms’ employees are required to annually attend corporate compliance and HIPAA inservices. Ask if the coding specialists are reviewed quarterly. Ask about internal and external audits of the coding teams’ work. Ask about their % of documented accuracy as stated by an independent auditor.  If the coding agency is under 97% accuracy documented by independent external audit, look elsewhere. All of the above items are costly to the coding firm but a top coding firm should be investing in quality.

And lastly, identify the coding firm’s indepth ICD-10 curriculum for their coding specialists. Also, identify their overall plan for ICD-10 implementation including their plan for parallel coding of ICD-9 and ICD-10.  Do not continue to lose dollars. Make a move now.

For more information, call 714.524.2500

ICD-9-CM Official Guidelines for Coding and Reporting

Effective October 1, 2008 http://www.ama-assn.org/resources/doc/cpt/icd9cm_coding_guidelines_08_09_full.pdf

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), two departments within the U.S.

Federal Government’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) provide the following guidelines for coding and reporting using the International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM). These guidelines should be used as a companion document to the official version of the ICD-9-CM as published on CD-ROM by the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO).

These guidelines have been approved by the four organizations that make up the Cooperating Parties for the ICD-9-CM: the American Hospital Association (AHA), the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), CMS, and NCHS. These guidelines are includedon the official government version of the ICD-9-CM, and also appear in “Coding Clinic for ICD-9-CM” published by the AHA.

These guidelines are a set of rules that have been developed to accompany and complement the official conventions and instructions provided within the ICD-9-CM itself.

The following are the CMS ICD-9 Site:

  1. CMS ICD-9 Site

http://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Coding/ICD9ProviderDiagnosticCodes/index.html?redirect=/ICD9ProviderDiagnosticCodes/

  1. Attachment D

http://www.oasisanswers.com/downloads/HHQIAttachmentD.pdf

  1. Coding Clinic

https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Coverage/CouncilonTechInnov/downloads/InnovatorsGuide5_10_10.pdf

Operational coding advice and guidelines for ICD-9-CM are published quarterly by the American Hospital Association (AHA) in Coding Clinic for ICD-9-CM (Coding Clinic). The Editorial Advisory Board (EAB) for Coding Clinic consists of representatives of AHA, the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), NCHS, CMS, the American Medical Association (AMA), the American College of Surgeons, and other hospital coders and physicians. Four of those parties (AHA, AHIMA, NCHS, and CMS) are identified as Cooperating Parties for Coding Clinic. The Cooperating Parties must agree on the coding guidance before it can be published in the Coding Clinic. Anyone may send issues to AHA for EAB discussion.

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Billing Compliance, Q Codes, Edits and Audits: Compliance in the Home Health Industry an Update

Tuesday, May 7th, 2013

CMS revised the requirements on “April 19, 2013 to delete “and indicating whether services were added to the HH plan of care by a physician who did not certify the plan of care” from the Provider Action Needed” section of MLN Matters numberMM8136 Revised.

Implementation date remains: July 1, 2013

Please see the following updated article.

Statistical Data

Every time an OASIS is submitted to the state, portions of it may be parsed out to state, regional, and Federal groups such as the HEAT, MAC review groups, and Federal special projects in the DOJ and FBI. That means that when a review letter arrives, it may already be too late.

Each time a claim is submitted, it is being reviewed using sophisticated predictive analytics that review a number of indicators including: frequencies, certain HIPPS codes and now Q codes. Is your billing company or department aggressively assisting to protect you?

Each time a diagnosis code is assigned to a clinical record and attached to that patient claim, an audit can be triggered. Is your coding department aggressively assisting to protect you?

Alerts in billing, Q Codes, and with ICD-10 looming, are you prepared?

The Q codes

Recently, CMS issued Change Request 8136 that requests new data reporting requirements for Home Health Prospective Payment System (HH PPS) claims. It is to go effect July 1, 2013, Home Health Agencies (HHAs) must start reporting new codes indicating:

The location where services were provided

The location where services were provided should be reported along with the first billable visit in a home health PPS episode with one of three Q codes: • Small clarification in the wording, but it can mean a BIG difference. Q Codes will be required to identify where the services were PROVIDED not necessarily the place of residence. Note the difference in wording.

1.  Q5001  – Hospice oe Home Health Provided in a patient’s home/residence

2.  Q5002 – Hospice or Home Health Provided in an Assisted Living Facility

3.  Q5009 – Hospice or Home Health Provided in a place not otherwise specified (NO)

Further, changes in the location during an episode must be reported on the corresponding line to the first visit in the new location.

CMS’ requirement to report new Q codes and modifiers could cause claims denials and rejections for your agency. Industry leaders predict CMS auditors will use these new codes to target duplicate services for patients in an ALF.

The patient’s residence is where he or she makes their home. “This may be his or her own dwelling, an apartment, a relative’s home, a home for the aged, or some other type of institution. Refer to www.cms.gov/Outreach-and-Education/Merdicare-Learning-Network-MLN/MLNMatters/Articles/Downloads/MM8136.pdf.com for the entire update from CMS MLN.

These codes also can interrupt productivity if your agency does not have a process in place by July 1 for documenting these services and supplying your billing specialists with the necessary information. Select Data has been providing billing services to the home health and hospice industry for over 22 years. If we can assist, call us.

On another matter…EDITS

Per CMS, in a report released a while ago, the NHIC Corp Medical Review Department reviewed claims selected by three service- specific home health edits between July1 and December 31, 2012. The alert was entitled Home Health Prepay Results. These reviews have found continuing high error rates. The three edits are:

·         5ACO1- billing of the HHRGs 3AFK

·         5ACO2- billing the HHRG 1AFK

·         5ACO3- billing 5-7 visits for full episode

52% of the claims were denied. The top denial reason was 55H3A-skilled observation was not reasonable and necessary. This was the denial reason for 56% of the denials. They cite “CMS Publication 100-02, Medicare Benefit Policy Manual Chapter 7, Section 40.1.2.1 explains that nursing services for observation are covered when the patient’s condition is changeable. Once the condition stabilizes, the nursing services are no longer medically necessary.”

The next highest denial reason stated CMS. was no physician certification (about 15% of denied claims). “The face to face encounter must be documented by the certifying physician.” They referred to Publication 100-02, MBPM, Chapter 7, Section 30.5.1.

“Documentation not supporting the homebound status was the reason for denial in 14% of the denied claims. Reason code 55H2B is appended to the claim when the documentation does not support the patient is homebound.” This was the third most common denial. Homebound status should be one of the first things reviewed by the clinician and the first item reviewed by any coding specialist. If there is insufficient documentation to support homebound status or medical necessity, a coding specialist should not be coding this record as it does not meet Home Health regulations right from the start. Is this a requirement of your coding specialists? It is a standard at Select Data.

The fourth most frequent denial was “physician orders not signed timely.” Another reason found as a denial reason was that” therapy services were determined to not require a therapist.”

Agencies should be auditing records routinely for these errors as well as the completeness of the record. Consider developing or using a chart audit tool. A sample of such a tool can be found on the Select Data website. That tool may be modified for completeness to meet your agency specific needs.

The NHIC Corp Medical Review Department review of specific claims are not the only claims being reviewed. Palmetto GBA recently announced new medical prepay audits based on certain HIPPS codes that have the highest denial rates. While PGBA internally identified the top 20 HIPPS groupings that have the highest denial rate. Here are the two under specific review:

  • 2CGK*
  • 1BGP*

As an agency provider, you should be prepared for possible ADRs on claims with these HIPPS. When an End of Episode claim is submitted using one of the two above HIPPS groupings, Palmetto GBA may place the claims into ADR status and you will be required to submit additional documentation from the chart in order for a determination to be made on the claim either being paid or denied. If you have limited QA resources, these are the charts you may want to focus on.

PECOS is placed on Delay per CMS

Due to technical issues, implementation of the Phase 2 ordering and referring denial edits is being delayed.   These edits would have checked certain claims for an approved or validly opted-out physician or non-physician who is an eligible specialty type with a valid individual National Provider Identifier (NPI). If this information were missing or incorrect, the following types of claims would deny:
• Claims from laboratories for ordered tests;
• Claims from imaging centers for ordered imaging procedures; and
• Claims from suppliers of Durable Medical Equipment, Prosthetics, Orthotics, and Supplies (DMEPOS) for ordered DMEPOS.
• Claims from Part A Home Health Agencies (HHA)

CMS will advise you of the new implementation date in the near future. In the interim, informational edits will continue to be sent for those claims that would have been denied had the edits been in place.

Predictive Analytics for operations and clinical data

In home health care, predictive models are being used to exploit patterns found in historical and transactional data to identify risks and opportunities. The present models capture relationships among many factors to allow assessment of risk or potential risk associated with a particular set of conditions. The relationships should guide clinicians in their care plan decisions as well as care delivery. There are thousands of potential OASIS and coding combinations. Because of the patient profiles and patterns retained over the years, comparisons can be made readily. Add HHRGs and service information to the OASIS and diagnostic data and CMS can gather very significant data regarding your agency care delivery and outcomes. MANY analytic filters are utilized to screen the data.

The initial round of filters are termed MUEs (Medically Unbelievable Edits). These edits are the first predictors of fraud and can alert the Z-PICs of agencies that should be monitored. Auditors may monitor an agency for years, gathering data, analyzing data and patterns, and reviewing payments. The agency profile is completed.

This data and these pre-probe edits allow Z-PICs to have plenty of time to analyze data and monitor agency behaviors so that when they send a letter, they have already completed their initial audit and arrived at a solid conclusion.

Since experts state that 75-85% of all agencies are acutely unaware of business operations data and do not have necessary compliance rules built into or a part of their billing practices to protect them from wrongful claim submission. Agencies are at risk so questions must be asked. Who is auditing your clinical records and care, the ICD-9 coding, and the claim submission? Who is monitoring your data? Do you have clinical and operational benchmarks? In 2009, billing errors were found to have doubled. Be proactive now, because if your compliance rules and program are weak, you could be hearing from the Z-PICs soon.

If you are considering third party ICD-9 (soon to be ICD-10) coding or billing specialty services, consider Select Data, the Gold Standard in these services for over 20 years.  Call us at1.800.332.0555.

 

 

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Preparing to Be Surveyor Ready Always? 10 Steps to Success

Tuesday, February 26th, 2013

Educate clinicians to document for clear reading, substantive support for Coding, and to support reimbursement.  Expect QA team members to verify 10 key elements that can lead to successful surveys.

Documentation  Documentation  Documentation is the key:

Have a copy of Publication 100-2, Chapter 7, the Medicare Benefits manual available for every QA member. Use it as a basis for education for all field clinicians.

  •  § 20 – Conditions for Coverage of Home Health Services,
  •  § 30 – Conditions to Qualify for Coverage of Home Health Services,
  •  § 40 – Conditions to Cover Services Under a Qualifying Home Health Plan of Care
  •  § 50 – Conditions for Coverage of Other Home Health Services

1.Home Visit Documentation: To meet the conditions, each clinical note/home visit documentation must contain the following components:

a) Measurable progress towards stated goals listed on the plan of care / 485.

b) Skilled Service provided/Instructed to the Patient and or Caregiver:

CMS states, “A skilled nursing service is a service that must be provided by a registered nurse or a licensed practical (vocational) nurse under the supervision of a registered nurse to be safe and effective. In determining whether a service requires the skills of a nurse, the reviewer considers both the inherent complexity of the service, the condition of the patient and accepted standards of medical and nursing practice.”

NOTE: Every element of the plan of care is based on the assessment of the patient’s condition and must be addressed throughout the course of the home health care. Failure to document the completion or progress toward completion of the components of the care can result in a surveyor citation, as this has been a focus of updated surveyor education.

Remember, it is not quantity of goals listed in Locator 22, but it is the quality and relevance of the goals.

2. Homebound Status:

a). The clinician must identify considerable taxing effort is exerted to leave the home

b). The clinician must note the type of assistive devices utilized

c). The clinician must note caregivers providing assistance

d). The clinician must document type and frequency of skilled care provided

3. Reconcile Care Delivered to Care Planned

It is quality of the plan not the quantity of items on the plan that matters. The clinician must follow every item listed on the plan of care, and document specifically  to the Plan of care established. Note supplemental orders also.

4. Total body assessments

A total body assessment is to be performed and documented at each visit.

5. Note Change of Condition

Complete documentation of the patients change in condition must occur with corresponding change in care plan and any additional orders and goals. Changes must be clearly documented

for each visit as a move to clinical outcomes occurs.

6. Patient and Caregiver Teaching

  • Three Types of Teaching:
  • Initial Teaching of a patient requires instruction on a new order, new medication, new diagnosis
  • Reinforced Teaching requires teaching/instruction on something the patient and/or caregiver may be knowledgeable of, but needs additional teaching
  • Re-teaching involves evaluation and reinstruction on a medication, diagnosis, treatment, etc that the patient has had prior instruction

The clinician should note patient/caregiver response/reaction to teachings/interventions in rough percentage of understanding, 20%, 25%, 50% as well as competency of the return demonstrations.

7. Caregivers

There are certain expectations to qualify as a caregiver. They must be willing to provide the care and perform the level of skill necessary and have the ability to perform required tasks. The clinician must document clearly if caregiver or patient refuses to participate in care and not the particulars such  as to why and the date of the refusal.

8. Appropriate and timely communication

Care Coordination with all relevant clinicians, with the case managers and physicians is required. The documentation must be clear and dated.

9. Specific definitive documentation of wounds

The clinician must document wound size, depth of tunneling and other descriptions as well as describing the treatment performed in specific detail at each visit. Wounds may be safely photographed as appropriate. Describe changes in the treatment regime and the ongoing progress communicated with the physician. WOCN consultation assessments as needed and be certain pain levels are noted as well as the patient’s response or lack of response to the medications and treatments prescribed. Do not forget to note alternative means of relief such as heat, ice, massage being utilized along with their effectiveness.

10. Appropriate and timely interventions to problems and deficiencies observed and reported.

Consider a Mock survey once to twice per year to keep everyone sharp, and to identify any incongruent and unnecessary processes that have crept into the everyday workflow. Be certain that when deficiencies are identified, a comprehensive plan of correction must be developed, the corrective actions need to be implemented and monitored to assure continued compliance with state and federal regulations.

Show the Surveyors the proactive plans of correction and your agencies march toward excellence. As you work toward demonstrating your agency value for ACOs, this proactive excellence plan works towards a positive survey, increasing agency value in collaborative efforts and of course, toward quality patient care.

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ICD-10: An Overview Are You Prepared? Part 1

Thursday, August 16th, 2012

The implementation date for ICD-10-CM has been pushed back one year to October 1, 2014, but it doesn’t mean you have a lot of time. If you have not assessed, through a Gap Analysis, the impact of ICD-10 on your organization, you should be planning that event…soon. There is a lot to do.

 Consider organizing an ICD-10 Transition Team. That team should have a project leader.

One of the first tasks of the team is to conduct an overview of ICD-10, identify the differences between ICD-9 and ICD-10, as well as the changes soon to come.

 The ICD-10-CM Manual is available in both a print and an electronic version. It will provide the classification system that identifies diagnoses and injuries. Acute care procedures are not included in ICD-10-CM as they have been provided in a separate classification system called ICD-10 PC, so they are not a focus of home care.

 The Transition Team needs to understand that all entities covered by HIPAA, per the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) who conduct healthcare transactions must comply with ICD- 10 requirements.

 Per CMS, every day it pays 4.4 million claims totaling  $1.5 B. Each month, Medicare receives 19,000 provider enrollment applications. Each year, Medicare pays over $430 B for 45 million beneficiaries. Each year, Medicaid nationally pays 2.5 billion claims for 54 million beneficiaries in 56 states and territories. ICD-10 is expected to assist in cost savings as well impacting fraud and abuse. Because of the specificity of ICD-10, more sophisticated algorithms are designed to hone in on questionable combinations of codes coupled with OASIS answers to spot potential fraud.

 What is the rationale for ICD-10?

 - ICD- 9 is 30 years old and no longer has code space for new diagnoses or new conditions and treatments.

 - ICD-9 is not always precise or unambiguous.

 - US mortality data is being reported in ICD-10

thus making international comparison of mortality and morbidity difficult.

 We need more coding specificity!

- Accountable Care Organizations, Patient Centered Medical Models, Guided Coaches, etc will require more discreet data.

- Benchmarking and quality measurement require more detailed codes

- Reimbursement will require detailed documentation reflected by codes that portray accurate patient conditions

- Increased specificity in data means more robust design of algorithms to predict outcomes and care

- Increased coding detail offers the capability to find previously unrecognized relationships in  

  disease as well as variables

- Increased capability to measure healthcare quality, safety, and efficiency

- Space to accommodate future advances and expansion

- Improved capability to determine disease severity for audit risk and adjustment

 The primary physician or specialist must establish a patient’s diagnosis. A nurse or therapist will document all pertinent diagnoses on the OASIS-C and the Home Health Certification and Plan of Care (Form CMS-485). New or additional diagnoses that the clinician identifies at the assessment must be verified by the physician before the diagnoses may be added to the patient’s medical record. For ICD-10, nothing changes other than greater detail availability via codes.

 At first glance, trying to use the ICD-10-CM Manual may seem overwhelming. In ICD-9-CM, there were approximately 14,000 choices for codes. In ICD-10-CM, there are  approximately 68,000 choices. Codes exist for so many injuries, including W61.11XA biting by a macaw, initial encounter or W61.11XD biting, subsequent encounter or codes for bites by a parrot, a goose, a turkey, or a chicken. All in all nine codes for each animal and there are a total of 312 animals. There are even separate codes for a turtle as one may be “bit by a turtle” or “struck by a turtle.” Humor aside, there are now the precise combination codes to more clearly depict the true presenting picture of the patient and their needs.

 ICD-10 CM may now have 68,000 codes but acute care procedure codes, ICD-10 PC, have increased from 3,000 to 87,000 codes. That is a phenomenal increase, but necessary, given the medical advances these past 30 years. There are expected organizational benefits from ICD-10 including administrative efficiencies, cost containment, capability for more accurate trend and cost analysis, along with improved coding accuracy and productivity.

 CMS believes that the impact on reimbursement expected, includes increased accuracy, fairer reimbursement, improved justification for medical necessity, fewer errors and rejected claims (after the initial learning curve), and reduced opportunities for fraud.

 ICD-10-CM codes may have up to 7 digits and digits 2 and 3 are numeric, digits 4-7 are alpha or numerical. The greater the specificity, the greater the number of characters required.

 A Bit of Humor

 There are so many codes including injuries incurred while sewing, ironing, playing a brass instrument, even while crocheting. There is even a code, V91.07XA, for burns due to water skis on fire. Really, quite the vision and subsequent to…what, one might ask.

 Because of the precise specificity, ICD-10 requires expertise in anatomy and physiology, pathophysiology, and diagnostics. The specificity is far greater than ICD-9 and the need to better understand finite A&P as well as diagnostics is vital. Injuries are grouped by anatomical site rather than type of injury. Another change includes sequelae instead of after effects.

 CMS plans to have a draft grouper ready by April, 2013.

 New features in ICD-10 include combination codes for a large variety of conditions, commonly seen symptoms, and manifestations. An example of a combination code includes:

E13.331 Diabetic Retinopathy with Macular Edema- other specified diabetes Mellitus with moderate non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy with macular edema.

  There are a number of expanded codes for diseases and conditions, such as diabetes, substance abuse, and injuries. Codes for post operative complications have also been expanded with a distinction between intraoperative complications and post procedural disorders.

 There will be an impact on many home health departments. In our next article, let’s discuss what preparation will be needed and the specifics needed for the Gap Analysis.

 Next article: What do we do to prepare for ICD-10: Developing the Gap Analysis

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Pain Management: It is a Focus of Care and a Focus of Auditors Part 2

Thursday, March 29th, 2012

Pain Assessment

Agencies need to identify, through policy or definitive tool, the questions to be asked. Some, but certainly not all questions, include:

What initiates or triggers the pain?

How and when did the injury occur or when was the disease been defined?

What treatments and interventions have been utilized?  Repositioning used?

Assess if Heat/Cold was used?  Homeopathic remedies used? Hypnosis or self relaxation exercises tried? Is Reflexology or Acupuncture used?

What medications have been prescribed? What frequency have medications been used?

What treatments have been effective?

Where is the pain located? Does it radiate?

Please describe the pain?

Is the pain present at this time?

How would you rate the pain?

How has the pain impacted your life? As to work? As to socialization? As to sports? As to family? As to finances? As to image?

Does the pain awaken you from sleep?

How frequently does this pain occur each day?

Do you still have pain despite having pain medication?

Let’s discuss your pain medications and other techniques you are using to manage this pain.

Rosdaqhl,  2010 describes a Description of Pain: COLDSPA:

Character

Onset

Location

Duration

Severity

Pattern

Associated factors

COLDSPA provides a cueing chart of terms to assess pain by clinicians. It is quick and easy to remember.

The Joint Commission and other accrediting bodies expect the clinician to adequately explain the rights of the patient to have an appropriate assessment, and to have clinicians who are educated in pain assessment and pain management.

Pain Measurement Tools

Though clinicians are usually aware of the Wong Baker Faces Scale which has facial expressions that correlate to an analog 0-10 rating scale, they may not be as accustomed to other scales such as the:

FLACC scale is an observational scale for preverbal children to assess specific body parts as pain indicators.

NPS is a neonatal pain observational scale to assess the child’s facial expressions, their cries, breathing, and state of arousal.

In addition, the McGill-Melzack Scale provides an assessment of word groupings from Group 1-Flickering, pulsing quivering, throbbing, pounding or Group 4- Sharp, gritting, lacerating, to Group 12- Sickening, suffocating to Group 20-Nauseating, agonizing, dreadful, and torturing.

Each scale offers pain assessment for  a specific population.

Pharmacological Therapy (in general)

Pharmacologic interventions are used to not only reduce pain but assist the patient’s mood, affect, and ability to increase socialization as well as providing a sense of hope. Controlled pain tremendously impacts the view of the world by the patient.

In general, the comfort and pain management medications can be divided into three analgesic classifications:

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAIDS) are used for mild to moderate pain. These drugs include Aspirin, ibuprofen (Motrin), and Naproxen (Aleve). Tylenol may also be used but with caution as Tylenol is frequently used in so many products including cough syrup. The NSAIDS require lab monitoring of the liver and stomach.

Opioid narcotic analgesics are used for moderate to severe visceral and somatic pain as well as Cancer and chronic pain. There are a variety of opioid types of analgesics which may be used together at staggered times to prevent breakthrough pain and manage intractable pain and to prevent tolerance to a specific single drug.

Examples of these drugs include:

Morphine: available in quick and slow release. Constipation is common as is initial nausea.

Dilaudid: considered to be 6-7 times more powerful than Morphine. Available in short acting doses.

Oxycodone: usually coupled with acetaminophen (Tylenol) or Ibuprofen. Short acting lasting usually only 6 hours or longer acting is also available.

Hydrocodone: usually coupled with Tylenol as Vicodin. Short acting for about 4 hours.

Fentanyl: provided in patch form providing various strengths of this systemic drug.

Adjuvant drugs are drugs that support NSAIDS and Opiods. These anti-epileptic drugs are usually used for neuopathic pain.

Neuotin: commonly used with patients demonstrating numbness, tingling, and burning pain. This may be seen with patients post chemotherapy use who exhibit peripheral neuropathy.

Antidepressants are utilized to combat depression and improving the quality of life of chronic pain sufferers. Some research supports the fact that over 60% of chronic pain suffers also have a psychiatric diagnosis.

Patient Controlled Analgesia: PCA

In the 1970s, PCA pumps became popular to allow patients to have a set dose of medication with almost immediate medication delivery. Patients were given autonomy with safe dosage, less sedation, and improved patient and physician satisfaction. PCAs are now routinely available post-op and available for cancer patients and select chronic pain patients.

Addiction Concerns

Patients are frequently concerned with potential addiction. They worry about the type of meds and the short and long term effects. If the patient does not have a terminal illness with less than six months expected lifespan, the clinician is overtly monitoring the patient for addiction.

Addiction is defined by the 4 Cs: Compulsive use, quantity Control, Craving the effects and feeling of the drugs, and Continued use even with significant drug adverse effects.

Non Pharmacologic Interventions

Nurses have been taught to utilize non pharmacologic interventions for pain management. These include:

  • Skin and Ortho comfort from a clean comfortable bed
  • Restful calm music or music of patient choice
  • Warm comfortably lit room
  • Tasty visually appealing food
  • Reduction of strong odors
  • Prevention of constipation and diarrhea
  • Proper hydration
  • Diversion activities
  • Positional changes as necessary
  • Warm baths (sponge or tub)
  • Backrubs
  • Therapeutic massage
  • Reflexology
  • Application of heat or cold
  • Visual imagery
  • Spiritual support
  • TENS Units stimulation/Biofeedback
  • Chiropractic Care
  • Acupressure
  • Acupuncture
  • Hypnosis
  • Homeopathy
  • Aromatherapy
  • Family support and contact
  • Planning for future…having a plan….having hope.

Do you have other suggestions for pain management that have provided relief? Research continues in this area.  Know that clinicians must document pain management carefully. Know that the surveyors and auditors are focusing on pain and management of that pain.

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