Table 4 Evaluation of the standardized Mean difference for the outcome of proper ICD billing broken down by sex, ethnicity, Financial Group, and Age. Using the standardized Mean difference (SMD), table 5 demonstrates differences in sex, ethnicity, payor, and age in the cohorts for admissions with accurate ICD coding and those with unbilled ICD codes. All the SMD values were in the low difference group indicating that there are unlikely any disparities. Additionally, setting reference categories (caucasian, middle-aged, private patients) direct comparisons were done with resulting P values. This data includes all ICD codes in the EMR without restricting to payor maximums
Accurate ICD Coding (24,621) | Unbilled ICD Coding (10,361) 29.6% | SMD | p-value | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Sex | 0.168 | < 0.001 | ||
Male | 10,739 (43.6%) | 5385 (52.0%) | ||
Female | 13,882 (56.4%) | 4976 (48.0%) | ||
Race / Ethnicity | 0.085 | < 0.001 | ||
Asian/Pacific Islander | 2406 (9.8%) | 1004 (9.7%) | 0.112 | |
Black | 2319 (9.5%) | 1099 (10.7%) | < 0.001 | |
Caucasian-Hispanic | 1824 (7.4%) | 847 (8.2%) | < 0.001 | |
Caucasian-Non-Hispanic | 12,824 (52.3%) | 5041 (48.9%) | REF | |
Other-Hispanic | 3095 (12.6%) | 1496 (14.5%) | < 0.001 | |
Other-Non-Hispanic | 2057 (8.4%) | 831 (8.1%) | 0.52 | |
Payor Group | 0.243 | < 0.001 | ||
Medi-Cal | 3329 (13.5%) | 1570 (15.2%) | < 0.001 | |
Medicare | 8689 (35.3%) | 4709 (45.4%) | < 0.001 | |
Private | 12,603 (51.2%) | 4082 (39.4%) | REF | |
Age Group | 0.219 | < 0.001 | ||
18–35 (young adult) | 5703 (24.2%) | 1577 (15.9%) | < 0.001 | |
36–64 (middle age) | 9945 (42.1%) | 4300 (43.5%) | REF | |
65–78 (aged) | 5432 (23.0%) | 2816 (28.5%) | < 0.001 | |
79+ (old) | 2534 (10.7%) | 1199 (12.1%) | 0.033 |