A-Life Medical Inc. last week announced the release of CoAudit, a medical coding audit software tool to simplify compliance and help locate lost revenue. CoAudit assists an auditor to spot errors, omissions, fraud, and abuse. CoAudit is able to automate the audit process by using statistical methods to produce a random sample of medical records, presents the data on screen for scoring, and generates an audit report highlighting compliance issues and potential revenue loss.
           
CoAudit is designed to reduce the cost and time to perform an audit, and plays a large role in maintaining a healthy compliance program, the company said.

Maintaining coder accuracy and thorough physician documentation is a common concern in physician billing offices. CoAudit’s automatic Scoring System keeps track of how each coder performed for a given audit and tells the auditor which coders are doing well and those who might need more training. When procedures are downcoded due to insufficient supporting documentation, CoAudit can provide the necessary evidence to uncover omissions. CoAudit also enables an auditor to show physicians a report of incomplete transcripts that result in a loss of revenue, the company said.

Key features of CoAudit include:

• Automatically determines the appropriate sample size from a population of records;
• A number of filtering parameters including coder, site, CPT code, ICD-9, code pair, modality, date range, physician, referring physician, payer code, and payer class;
• Provides scoring of coders to track accuracy and improve efficiency;
• Saves parameters in a template for future audits;
• Provides access to data across multiple sites;
• Controls access using three levels of secured permissions; and
• Creates detailed Audit Reports based on coder, site, CPT code, ICD-9, code pair, modality, referring physician, payer code, and payer class