Petition to Health+Hospitals

We the undersigned Medical Records Specialists start the Revenue Cycle for New York City Health and Hospitals and affiliate clinics. It is our training, education, experience and expertise in coding medical records which ensures that the contractual revenue is obtained. During this pandemic we have continued to diligently perform our duties but are being met with threats, quotas and disrespect to our profession by management. We are collectively bringing forth this petition to demand of Health and Hospitals and affiliate clinics the following:

1. All Medical Record Specialists, Associate Medical Record Specialists and Supervising Medical Records Specialists work 100% remotely throughout ALL Health and Hospitals and affiliated clinics permanently.

Currently there are varying remote schedules throughout H & H and affiliate clinics for no reason than to validate the redundant layers of management. This includes various Associate Directors, Assistant Directors, and Coordinating Managers, many of which have no coding experience or expertise.

2. Form an MRS Advisory Council comprised of union MRS to work closely with Central Office to ensure the adherence of Coding Guidelines in our trainings, meetings and Epic workload.

Credentials without experience in the five distinct areas of coding (ER, Clinic, Ambulatory Surgery, Inpatient Short Stay and Inpatient) does not make for good leadership or guidance. The MRS Advisory Council will be comprised of experienced coders throughout H & H and its affiliate clinics who have the experience and expertise in the five distinct areas of coding regardless of credential status.

3. Adherence and respect of the DC37 Health Service Unit Contract, Article V pages 54-55.

Our contract is defined and signed every three years by the City of New York and DC 37. The specific language therein is clearly stated. Currently Central Office at H & H has been quietly implementing a workload productivity quota for MRS that is violating our contract. This violation is being used to threaten the employment of our members vis a vis counseling, warnings and poor evaluations that lead to termination.

4. Streamline the third- party vendors and nonunion personnel that are creating barriers in MRS daily workload and reimbursement.

Medical Records Specialists inherently have a direct communication relationship with providers facilitating any questions / clarifications regarding their cases. This direct link is now broken by the addition of CDI (Clinical Documentation Improvement Specialists). They were employed to educate the providers in clearer documentation but instead are focusing on coding which is not their area of expertise, at double the current salary of MRS. Clinic cases coded by a third- party vendor in India have to be corrected stateside which delays reimbursement. That contract pays per case more than double the hourly wage of MRS. A third- party vendor contract was recently terminated by H & H because the vendor was fraudulently changing the codes on cases that resulted in H & H having to return reimbursed funds. The money misspent on these non- union personnel and third-party vendors would be better spent on increasing the salaries of MRS and retaining the union personnel who have a vested interest in the continued success of Health and Hospitals and the affiliate clinics.