Senior Clinical Coding Officer

Advert may close early if sufficient number of applications is reached.

The post-holder will be responsible for the clinical coding of inpatient and day-case episodes across all specialties provided at North Tees and Hartlepool Hospitals.

The post involves liaising with clinicians and clinical teams on a regular basis to verify data recorded in patient case-notes and on electronic systems.

The post holder will contribute positively towards the development of the novice clinical coders, will act as mentor to and assist in the training of less experienced coders.

The post may be worked either remotely from home, on site in the coding office, or as a hybrid of the two. If the post holder opts for full time remote working, they will be expected to attend the hospital site periodically.

Abstract clinical information from the electronic patient record to translate into diagnostic (ICD
10) and operative (OPCS4) codes in a timely and accurate manner, applying national and international classification rules and conventions;

Ensure coded data submitted is complete and accurate with full understanding of responsibility for generating the correct financial revenue for the Trust, and impact on Trust's mortality indicators;

Ensure monthly departmental deadlines are met, in line with nationally mandated flex and freeze dates, including forward planning of workloads for self and less experienced team members

At North Tees & Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust our main priority is, and always will be, to provide safe and high quality care to our patients every day; the kind of care we would want for ourselves and our loved ones. We want our organisation to be the best place to work with the right staff, in the right roles, at the right time, to ensure we deliver exceptional patient care and experience.

We will support staff through providing an inclusive and supportive workplace with health and well-being initiatives, staff benefits and opportunities for personal and professional development. Staff recognition is very important to us; as well as performance reviews and appraisals, we recognise staff through Star and Team of the month, colleague recognition - a note of thanks, Managers Awards, Shining Stars and Service Awards.

We support the Making Every Contact Count approach to behaviour change in the promotion of health and wellbeing of individuals and communities.

We recruit for values and "Together we are North Tees & Hartlepool"

Abstract clinical information from the electronic patient record to translate into diagnostic (ICD
10) and operative (OPCS4) codes in a timely and accurate manner, applying national and international classification rules and conventions;

Ensure coded data submitted is complete and accurate with full understanding of responsibility for generating the correct financial revenue for the Trust, and impact on Trusts mortality indicators;

Ensure monthly departmental deadlines are met, in line with nationally mandated flex and freeze dates, including forward planning of workloads for self and less experienced team members;

Liaise with hospital wards and other departments as necessary to chase up outstanding source data;

Contribute to improvements in accuracy and completeness of clinical coding for admitted care;

Work with clinical teams to ensure that palliative care coding is used appropriately and monitored;

Utilise the Trust chosen benchmarking system to identify coding quality issues and to monitor progress;

Attend meetings to discuss coding issues and data-quality as required;

Improve communication between clinicians and clinical coders regarding the coding process, by meeting and liaising with relevant clinicians on a regular basis agreeing and documenting outcomes;

Work with clinicians to ensure they understand the coding process and its limitations, discuss complex clinical information and convey coding standards and requirements in language understandable by clinicians;

Support the Clinical Coding Managers and Training and Audit Team to establish a process to allow clinicians to validate and sign-off their own data quality and resolve their queries;

Ensure coding queries are resolved, escalating to the line manager where necessary;

Support and act as mentor to less experienced coders, and assist with their development;

Participate in discussions relating to general coding problems and issues, for example, at departmental meetings;

Plan and prioritise own workload to meet performance and quality targets and, in a timely manner, advise the line manager of any hindrance to the achievement of these targets;

Assist in the continuing development and improvement of the Clinical Coding service in order that high quality-data can be collected and produced with minimum delay;

Advise the line manager on the standards of information provided for clinical coding, particularly if this becomes unacceptable, and highlight issues relating to administrative coding discrepancies such as…