Clinical Coding Auditor

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Job overview

We currently have an exciting opportunity for a highly skilled Clinical Coding Auditor to join our audit and training team on a full-time permanent basis. This is a hybrid role consisting of working from home and working on site.

To work closely with the Clinical Coding Audit and Training Team and other Clinical Coding Specialists to support the improvement in clinical documentation and accurate clinically coded data. To advise on data recording practises to ensure clinical coding accurately reflects the Patient care delivered. Undertake internal clinical coding validation audits highlighting training and data quality issues to the Clinical Coding Manager.

Suitable candidates will hold the Approved Clinical Coding Auditor Qualification and will have a hardworking and flexible attitude towards professional tasks at hand.

Interview date: TBC

Main duties of the job

• Act as a support to the Assistant manager to facilitate contact with designated directorate or specialties and communicate complex coding issues and National coding standards to medical and non-medical staff to ensure accuracy and consistency of information.
• To abstract, analyse, translate and data enter complex medical care records into diagnostic and procedural codes in an accurate and timely manner adhering to the Trusts monthly deadlines.
• Act as a mentor and assist in the education of less experienced coders. Ensure accuracy and completeness of the clinical coding to national clinical coding requirements. To work with clinicians on a regular basis to validate clinically coded data.

Working for our organisation

Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust serves a population of over 600,000 with a workforce of over 9000 dedicated and skilled staff across 21 sites.

We strongly believe that the communities we serve should all have access to Five Star Patient Care.

Our Services

Acute Care
Providing emergency and maternity services at Whiston, Southport and Ormskirk hospitals, and medical and surgical specialties across all our sites.

Primary Care
Providing primary care services at Marshalls Cross Medical Centre situated in St Helens Hospital.

Community Services
Providing adult community services for St Helens and a wheelchair service in Chorley, South Ribble, and West Lancashire. Our inpatient unit at Newton Community Hospital is where patients needing acute hospital beds can continue rehabilitation, freeing up space for more unwell patients. We also provide urgent care at our Urgent Treatment Centre located in St Helens town centre.

Specialist Regional Services
We provide the Mersey Regional Burns & Plastic Surgery Unit at Whiston Hospital and the Spinal Injuries Unit at Southport Hospital to more than 4 million people across the whole of Merseyside, West Lancashire, Cheshire, Isle of Man and North Wales.

Achievements:

• Rated Outstanding by CQC Inspection August 2018
• Top 100 places to work in the NHS (NHS Employers & Health Service Journal)
• National Preceptorship Accreditation (2023) for Nursing & AHP Preceptorship Programme

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

KEY DUTIES

• To operate on own initiative referring more complex cases to the Clinical Coding Assistant Manager for advice. To act in the capacity of coding expert and provides advice to junior team members on coding queries ensuring adherence to national clinical guidelines.
• Undertake staff audits and ad hoc specialty audits.
• Assign codes from the International Classification of Diseases (ICD10) and the Office of Populations and Censuses and Surveys (OPCS4)
• Participate in preparing audit reports for staff audits undertaken.
• Participate in Departmental meetings and present the results of relevant reviews.
• Demonstrate good presentation skills to colleagues, the multi-disciplinary team and Clinicians.
• Coordinate engagement between Coders, Clinicians and Divisional Managers.
• Responsible for planning own workload to ensure that the objectives of the whole team are achieved.
• Maintain a professional standard of behaviour with all Trust staff.
• Take responsibility for keeping up to date with current issues and developments within the coding department.
• Work with the Divisional Managers, Associate Managers and Clinicians to improve and sustain accurate clinical data recording to support clinical coding to National Standards.
• Raise clinical coding issues with the Coding Manager.
• Undertake clinical coding reviews as required and agreed.
• Identify key areas impacting on HRG assignment and tariff making recommendations to the Clinical Coding Assistant Manager accordingly.
• Work with the Audit and training team to identify key areas for clinical coding review.
• Plan meetings with Senior Clinicians as and when necessary to undertake review of clinical information where queries have been raised.
• To validate complex clinical data and procedures with Clinicians in order to assure depth of coding for accurate payment.
• Analyse external audit reports and recommend to the Coding Manager and Divisions any corrective measures that need to be put in place to improve data quality and clinical coding outcomes.
• Support the Auditors & Clinical Coding Assistant Manager in obtaining clarification on new interventional procedures and clinical practice within the divisional specialties to ensure correct understanding for code assignment and support cascading this information.
• To liaise with clinicians and their support staff concerning interpretation of case notes documentation affecting coding.
• To prioritise Junior Clinical Coders workload and reallocate work to cover sickness or leave at short notice.
• To work with the Clinical Coding Manager to ensure all coding timescales are met and ensure that Junior Clinical Coders meet their targets.

CLINICAL & PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES

• To maintain own high standards of clinical coding accuracy and productivity.
• To participate in ongoing clinical coding training to meet national standards and Trust Requirements.
• Ensure own coding skills are kept up to date.
• Participate in creating an environment conducive to the acquisition of further knowledge and skills.
• To take every reasonable opportunity to maintain and improve your professional knowledge and competence.
• To take responsibility for developing and pursuing his/her own professional development skills in accordance with an agreed PDP.

ADMINISTRATIVE RESPONSIBILITIES

• To validate the hospital activity details on the PAS system against the information in the case notes. To report any details found to be incorrect to the Data Quality Team and to highlight areas of concern with information in the case notes.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

• GCSEs (A-C) or equivalent
• Accredited Clinical Coding Qualification (NCCQ)
• Clinical Coding Audit Qualification

Knowledge

Essential criteria

• Extensive specialist clinical coding experience across all specialties
• Experience of working with the HRG Grouper
• Planning, organising workload to meet deadlines
• Experience of undertaking presentations relating to clinical coding
• Experience of mentoring junior members of the coding team
• Transferring coding skills and knowledge to others
• Experience of working with clinicians and or/senior staff

Desirable criteria

• Knowledge of Information governance, data protection legislation, Caldicott and other relevant guidance.

Skills

Essential criteria

• Firm grounding in medical terminology and anatomy and physiology
• Ability to work on own initiative and as part of a team
• Good understanding of Payment by Results framework
• Excellent knowledge and understanding of clinical coding rules and conventions.
• Effective inter-personal skills.
• Possess motivation and persuasion skills
• Excellent PC skills.

Other

Essential criteria

• Excellent concentration skills, with attention to detail
• Flexible approach to work

Desirable criteria

• Knowledge of Snomed CT
• Ability to travel to various hospital locations by own car/assisted driver

Thank you for considering an application to work for Mersey West Lancashire NHS Trust. MWL is an exciting and forward-thinking NHS Trust who are one of the best places to work for in England.

Given sometimes we receive a high volume of applications to work for us, please be aware, that we may close a vacancy earlier than stated should a sufficient number of applications be received from which a shortlist can be confirmed. Therefore, you are advised to apply at your earliest convenience.

The Trust may contact you during the recruitment process for your feedback on your experience. We always aim for continuous improvement in our practice.

Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion

We actively cultivate a professional environment of fairness, equality, dignity, and respect for all individuals. We welcome individuals from all backgrounds and value the unique skills, perspective and experience you bring. We are grounded in the belief that diversity enhances our collective strength, fostering innovation and excellence within our workforce. We welcome all applications irrespective of people\’s race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, religion/belief, age, gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy/maternity and in particular those from under- represented groups.

As a Disability Confident Leader , we commit to offering an interview to all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the job (the essential criteria) listed in the personal specification. If you wish to apply under this Guaranteed Interview Scheme, please indicate this on the online application form.

If you are having difficulty completing an online application, or require any disability reasonable adjustments, to the application process, please contact [email protected]

We also commit to offering an interview to all armed forces veterans who meet the minimum criteria for the job (the essential criteria) listed in the personal specification. If you wish to apply under this Guaranteed Interview Scheme, please indicate this on the online application form.

The Trust operates anonymous shortlisting where no personal information about you, including your name or personal details are shared with the recruiting manager. No equality information is shared at any time during the recruitment process with the recruiting manager or other people involved in the decision-making process.

The equality monitoring information you provide is used in the following situations: to review our recruitment practices; where a job is limited to a specific person to verify their eligibility to apply; and to offer disability reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab) .

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab) .

Following the recent update on UK immigration policy for those on a Health and Care Visa or Skilled Worker Visa, please click here to check your eligibility before applying for this post as we may be unable to provide sponsorship.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

If this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Please note if applicable, applicants will be required to pay for their DBS check. Costs are deducted from salary following appointment.

If you have not already done so, you are therefore encouraged to enrol for the DBS Update Service to which a small annual fee of £13 per year applies.

Flexible Working

We actively support flexible working patterns throughout MWL. Changes made to the NHS Terms and Conditions of Service Handbook mean that:

• All employees have the right to request flexible working from day one of employment.
• There is no limit on the number of requests they can make.
• Employees have the right to make requests, have them considered, regardless of the reason.

At Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, we will consider requests for flexible working. We would also encourage you to also discuss flexible working options at interview stage.

Working for Team MWL

Staff recognition is especially important to us; as well as performance reviews and appraisals, we recognise staff through Employee of the month. Along with supporting you to achieve your career goals we offer a generous pension scheme, unsocial hours payments (where applicable), 27 days annual leave on commencement (pro rata) and access to a range of NHS discounts. Our Staff Health and Wellbeing programme offer a variety of services.

The Trust is a non-smoking across all our sites. Failure to follow this rule could lead to disciplinary action. For more information, see the Smoke Free NHS website

You must ensure that your application, including personal statements and behaviour examples, are truthful and factually accurate. Please note plagiarism can include presenting the ideas and experience of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own.

The Trust will not accept applications which are found to be AI generated and will check all applications against AI detection software.

Additional Information

Before applying, we encourage you to review the Trusts Values and Behaviours which are We are KIND, We are OPEN, We are INCLUSIVE, which can be found here.

An applicant guide to help and support you with your application and what to expect during your recruitment journey can be accessed in the supporting documents.

Good luck with your application. We hope to welcome you to Team MWL very soon.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Documents to download

• Job Description ( PDF , 168.6 KB )
• Person Specification ( PDF , 128.6 KB )
• Important information for candidates ( PDF , 128.6 KB )
• Helpful tips to complete your application form ( PDF , 1.2 MB )
• MWL Recruitment Journey ( PDF , 884.1 KB )
• Staff Benefits at MWL ( PDF , 5.6 MB )

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