Meeting & Agendas

Norma Mercado welcomed the Advisory Board Members. Members present at the meeting greeted and introduced themselves. Norma Mercado reminded the board members that in the future the board would be meeting once a year.

Members reviewed minutes from December 4, 2015 meeting. Martha Hurtado motioned to accept minutes as written and Sharon Moody second the motion. The members unanimously voted to accept the minutes as written.

1. Norma Mercado reported current enrollment in both the Associate Degree program and Medical Coding Certificate degree program. Presently there are 45 students enrolled in the Associate program and 12 students enrolled in the Medical Coding Certificate program. Norma Mercado noted that students are still registering and applying to the program for fall 2016. Norma said she is hoping to hire 1 new full time person by fall 2017. Norma Mercado to hire new faculty, Fall 2017. 2. Norma Mercado reported the current staffing number for the HITT program. Presently, the staffing level consists of 2 full time faculty and 3 adjuncts. 3. Norma Mercado stated that there is a need for more clinical placements. She stated that St. David’s is currently not accepting students. She also said that the program needed money for her and possibly Mary Keeton to attend the Assembly on Education conference. At present, faculty is allotted $175.00 to attend conferences. The cost to register for the conference is $475.00. In addition, Norma Mercado Stated that there is also a need to add one more full time employee. Mary Keeton suggested that maybe the program could set up a CAHIMA scholarships for those students who need help to pay for the exam which cost $299.00. Norma Mercado said she would check to see if CAHIMA may have scholarships already in place. Norma Mercado will check on scholarships. Norma said that due to low clinical placement for the program students, she is going to bring the clinical in house. Cynthia Colovas commented this could easily be done by offering coding case studies, field trips and by also having special speakers from the field come in for presentations Norma Mercado will oversee clinical coming in house. 4. Norma Mercado reported that there have been 16 program graduates from the associate degree program. 5. Norma Mercado reported that HITT students who have graduated are currently placed at: Healthcare Setting-11 and Non-Health Care Setting-5 6. Norma Mercado announced that by February 2016 she would be sending out Graduate Satisfaction surveys. February 2016, Norma Mercado will send out graduation surveys. 7. Norma stated that she sent out Employer Satisfaction surveys and had no returns. She reported that she send out 11 surveys by mail. She stated that she will have to do something different next time when she sends them. 8. Norma Mercado explained the certification outcomes. There have been 4 attempts from the HITT students. Of those attempts, 4 passed on the 1st attempt. Norma also reported that the National average score is 72% and ACC’s average score is 100%.

Norma stated that in fall 2015, 60 hour AAS degree had begun and that the discontinuation of the Medical Coding Certificate program would be effective until fall 2015. She added that the Medical Coding certificate program teach out would be in effect until August 31, 2018. Norma Mercado spoke about areas in the curriculum that need to be implemented such as hiring of graduates and job security. Norma Mercado stated that recently coders are working remote from their homes. Seton and Paragon requires 2-3 years of experience to work remote.

Norma Mercado presented the Discipline Assessment Cycle (DAC) peer form for the board members to review and discuss. After Norma Mercado read the form out loud to the members, the members discussed some of the highlights of the form for better clarification and the role of the HITT program as it pertains to DAC. Norma Mercado said the DAC is basically the documenting of the extent to which students have attained the learning outcomes and objectives set before them.

Norma Mercado reported that she had finished her self-study for approval. Norma Mercado stated that ACC has its own self- study. Karen Cooper will be looking at the self-study for Norma Mercado. Karen Cooper will review self-study for Norma Mercado.

Norma Mercado announced that she is having to bring the clinical in house due to low placement availabilities. She stated that CAHIMA does not mandate placement. She said that in bringing the clinical in house she will now be assigning the students more case studies and taking them on field trips. Cynthia Colovas suggested that in lieu of field trips, she should bring in representatives from the field for presentations. Norma Mercado also presented a statement from the CAHIIM Commissioners 2012. The statement basically stated that CAHIIM does not state the number of hours, the number of PPEs, or prescribe how such experiences are conducted—but accredited programs are expected to provide some type of meaningful experience whereby students are exposed to the field (HI or HIM) and a broad base of options/employer environments are available today to support this happening. In addition, Norma Mercado presented changes to the curriculum. The changes are to be: A. HITT 1160 remains HITT 1160 B. HITT 1260 is now be HITT 1161 C. HITT 2360 is now be HITT 2260

Norma Mercado said that she is preparing to go and recruit new students for the program and that before she did she wanted to ask the question “do we have the right students for HIM?” Cynthia Colovas said that places that are hiring are now looking for Clinical Documentation Improvement. She also stated that she wanted to know about apprentice roles? She added that there are not enough coding pools and the work is being outsource to companies in India.

There being no further business to discuss, the meeting was adjourned by Cynthia Colovas. NEXT MEETING: Tentative for December 2017