Outpatient Lead CDI Specialist - Certified (Full-time, Monday - Friday)

Outpatient Lead CDI Specialist - Certified (Full-time, Monday - Friday)

Washington Regional Med. Ctr. - Fayetteville, AR 72703

Overview

Position Type Full Time Job Shift Days Education Level Certification in related field Category Business Services/Revenue Cycle Management

Description

Our mission is to improve the health of people in the communities we serve through compassionate, high-quality care, prevention, and wellness education. Washington Regional Medical System is a community-owned, locally governed, non-profit health care system located in Northwest Arkansas in the heart of Fayetteville, which is consistently ranked among the Best Places to live in the country. Our 425-bed medical center has been named the #1 hospital in Arkansas for five consecutive years by U.S. News & World Report. We employ 3,200+ team members and serve the region with over 40 clinic locations, the region's only Level II trauma center, and five Centers of Excellence - the Washington Regional J.B. Hunt Transport Services Neuroscience Institute; Washington Regional Walker Heart Institute; Washington Regional Women and Infants Center; Washington Regional Total Joint Center; and Washington Regional Pat Walker Center for Seniors.

The Outpatient Lead CDI Specialist Certified reports directly to the Vice President of Practice Transformation and serves as the direct supervisory lead for the outpatient Clinical Documentation Improvement (CDI) team. This position is responsible for providing day-to-day leadership, work direction, performance support, and operational oversight for Outpatient CDI Specialists while also performing advanced outpatient CDI review functions. The role partners closely with providers, coding, revenue cycle, quality, compliance, and practice transformation leadership to ensure accurate, complete, and compliant clinical documentation that supports appropriate coding, reimbursement, quality reporting, risk adjustment, and continuity of care across the outpatient setting.

Essential Position Responsibilities

• Conduct and oversee comprehensive reviews of outpatient medical records to identify documentation opportunities, including missing diagnoses, specificity, severity of illness, risk adjustment support, procedure documentation, treatment details, and appropriate linkage between clinical findings and coded data.
• Educate, coach, and collaborate with outpatient providers, clinic leaders, coding staff, and CDI team members regarding documentation requirements, best practices, compliant query processes, and opportunities to improve the accuracy and completeness of clinical documentation.
• Provide direct supervision and daily leadership for Outpatient CDI Specialists, including workload assignment, prioritization of reviews, monitoring of productivity and quality expectations, coaching, mentoring, and support for individual and team performance.
• Serve as the primary escalation resource for outpatient CDI workflow questions, provider documentation concerns, query appropriateness, outpatient coding documentation opportunities, and team process standardization.
• Support hiring, onboarding, training, competency assessment, performance feedback, and corrective action recommendations for assigned Outpatient CDI Specialists in collaboration with the Vice President of Practice Transformation and Human Resources.
• Analyze outpatient CDI program data, including documentation quality, provider query trends, productivity, impact measures, denial trends, risk adjustment opportunities, and team performance metrics; prepare reports and present findings, recommendations, and improvement opportunities to practice transformation leadership.
• Maintain current knowledge of outpatient CDI principles, ICD-10-CM, CPT, HCPCS, HCC/risk adjustment concepts, payer documentation requirements, Medicare regulations, compliance expectations, and applicable industry standards.
• Lead outpatient CDI program initiatives, including workflow design, education development, process improvement, audit readiness, documentation standardization, and implementation of strategies that improve provider engagement, documentation integrity, and outpatient revenue cycle outcomes.

Qualifications

• Education: High school diploma or GED, required. Minimum of associate's degree in a healthcare or business-related field, preferred. Graduate of an accredited nursing program, preferred.
• Licensure and Certifications: Active CDI, coding, or health information certification required, such as CPC, CCDS, CCDS-O, CDIP, RHIA, or RHIT. CCDS-O or other outpatient CDI-focused certification preferred. RN or LPN licensure preferred when supported by clinical background and experience.
• Experience: Minimum of three years of clinical documentation improvement, coding, revenue cycle, health information management, outpatient clinical documentation review, or related healthcare experience required. Minimum of one year of outpatient CDI or documentation integrity experience required. Prior lead, supervisory, preceptor, training, audit, or team coordination experience strongly preferred. Must demonstrate advanced knowledge of outpatient documentation requirements, ICD-10-CM and CPT coding guidelines, compliant query practices, risk adjustment concepts, provider education, data analysis, and performance improvement. Must possess strong leadership, communication, critical thinking, organization, and relationship-building skills with the ability to guide a team, manage competing priorities, resolve workflow barriers, and collaborate effectively with providers, operational leaders, coding, revenue cycle, quality, and compliance stakeholders.

Work Environment: This position is a hybrid of remote and on-site. 80% of the time is sitting while performing work in a standard office or home office environment. The other 20% of the time will be standing, walking, or transferring while pushing, pulling, lifting, and/or carrying up to 20 lbs. May involve regular interaction with clinicians, coding staff, and other healthcare professionals.

Notice: This job description is designed to provide an overview of the essential and principal duties and responsibilities of the position. The job description is not designed or intended to cover or set forth a comprehensive listing of all activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee. Washington Regional reserves the right in its absolute discretion to change duties, responsibilities or activities or assign new duties, responsibilities, or activities at any time with or without notice. Employees may be directed to perform job-related tasks other than those specifically presented in this description.