flynn043

It hardly seems possible, but Labor Day weekend is upon us and September is only a few days away.  As the unofficial end of summer, that means one thing in Colorado - all of the pools will be closing this weekend.  It's my last chance to get to the pool before they abruptly drain it and cover it over.  The only time it will be appealing until next Memorial Day weekend is when it snows enough to partially coat the pool cover and make it look like a picturesque iced-over pond.  So this weekend I'm hoping the super hot weather we're having this week carries over through Monday without any thunder storms. You see, I'm old school when it comes to swimming.  All those rules that seemed so ludicrous when I was a kid now make perfect sense.  Don't run around the pool because it's slick and having suffered my share of skinned knees from falling pool side, I get it.  Don't eat right before you swim because you might get a cramp and drown.  And finally, the ...

I've been hanging out in a room with other coders most of the week with piles of cases and lots of discussions about how to code them in ICD-10.  I wanted to get at least one post out this week with a code for the day, but there was really not much I felt inspired to write about.  While many of our discussions did revolve around coder humor, nothing really jumped out at me. I was about to let it go. It is Friday, after all.  Perhaps something inspiring would happen over the weekend.  Or perhaps the Final Rule for ICD-10 would be published on Friday morning. Wait... What? The Final Rule? We've been through a roller coaster with this whole ICD-10 thing.  When I started as a coder in the 90s, there were rumors that ICD-10 was coming any day.  It was already overdue at that time - it should have been implemented in 1989.  And we waited.  And waited.  We went to countless presentations once the draft code sets were underway and in January 2009, ju...

As I mentioned in my last blog posting, I recently returned from Oregon.  The trip was conceived while catching a repeat of a favorite movie from the 80s - The Goonies. The Goonies house with its signs & the jail with getaway Jeep If you haven't seen the movie, I highly recommend it.  In short, it's about a group of misfit kids living in Astoria, Oregon, who are in danger of losing their homes to the rich set, who plan to tear down their houses in exchange for a golf course.  The kids find a treasure map in the attic that leads them on an adventure complete with the bumbling Fratelli gang of crooks, pirates, scary caves, and - of course - hidden treasure obscured by Oregon's natural landscape and pirate booby ("that's what I said, booby") traps.  And if they can find the treasure, they can save their homes, which they lovingly refer to as the Goondocks.  The movie was written by Chris Columbus, produced by Steven Spielberg, and directed by Superman's R...

How I spent my summer vacation... Today is my first day back at work after vacation.  Yay.  As you can probably tell from my previous blog postings, I love my job.  But I also love sandy beaches, exploring new areas, sunsets over the Pacific Ocean, and just generally goofing off with no specific agenda. I spent the first few days of my vacation working my little tail off around the house and getting ready for the payoff: 4 days on Oregon's northern coast.  Our trip involved a very scenic tour of Astoria and surrounding areas and, as you can see from my little photo montage here, it was simply breathtaking.  We visited 2 beaches, hiked, visited 2 lighthouses (saw a third from afar), hiked, watched the seals, hiked, visited filming locations for three movies, and hiked some more (and yes, that is a shipwreck you see in the bottom right picture!). But now I am back in Denver where it's hot and dry instead of cool and comfortably damp.  Colorado is a beautiful ...

I hope you have enjoyed the last few weeks of Code for the Day posts and please savor this one.  Because I'm going on vacation!  For a little more than a week, I plan to take a small trip, get to some of those things around the house that there never seems to be time for, and read a book or two poolside.  My biggest plan is to turn off all work-related emails and leave my code books shut.  I couldn't leave, though, without giving you one last installment of the code for the day.  Don't worry, I'll be back and blogging more codes for the day in a couple of weeks. Let's see, what code would be appropriate with a vacation theme?  How about this? Z75.5, Holiday relief care Okay, you caught me.  There's an identical code in ICD-9-CM (V60.5), so it's hardly new.  But I always liked the code description.  Let's break it down.  The word holiday gives me visions of taking off to exotic locals outfitted in a flowing sundress, big sunglasses, and a...

I have a client who sends me pictures of food.  It all started when he began on a series of business trips and he wanted to sample the local fair.  Having traveling quite extensively myself, he asked my advice on what and where to eat in the cities of Baltimore and Chicago.  Oh, Baltimore.  I'm a Colorado native, but I owe a lot to Baltimore.  My grandmother grew up near there and had it not been for a fateful night in the early 40s at a Baltimore bus stop, she never would have met my grandfather and fallen in love.  My first trip to Baltimore wasn't until 2009 when I went to the AHIMA ICD-10 Academy but it was instilled in me from an early age that Baltimore is all about the crab cakes.  And there's nothing quite like a Maryland crab cake.  I've had lots of crab cakes over my life, many times in the presence of my now 92-year-old grandmother.  She will inevitably go for the crab cake and fries over the baked chicken and salad (love her!)....

Like so many people right now, I am glued to my TV each night watching Team USA go for the gold.  My favorite is women's gymnastics and there really isn't much that can tear me away from watching it.  Especially now that I have DVR.  First disclosure: I record the games every night and am usually a couple of hours behind real time, so I still haven't seen all of last night's events yet, even though I've heard the spoilers (note to self, do not go on Facebook if you are recording the Olympics).  And this morning, when I woke up, I had this weird thought in my head.  Don't it make my brown eyes blue.  As in the Crystal Gayle song from the 70s (okay young'ens - google it!).  And it's link to the 1984 Olympics. Disclosure number two: my brother tells me I remember the weirdest stuff. As I was watching women's gymnastics one afternoon during the 1984 Olympics, my brother had an accident with a pair of needle nose pliers and a spray paint can.  The res...