Free CCDS-O Questions Attempt

Symbicort is an inhaled combination medication containing an inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) and a long-acting beta-agonist (LABA). In outpatient chart review, this medication class is most strongly associated with chronic airway inflammatory diseases requiring controller therapy—especiallypersistent asthma(and also maintenance therapy for COPD, though COPD is not an option here). For CDI purposes, medication-to-diagnosis linkage can act as a clinical indicator supporting clarification when the visit note lists respiratory symptoms but does not clearly document the chronic condition being treated or its acuity/status. Symbicort is not used to treat musculoskeletal degenerative disease (osteoarthritis), peripheral nerve pain from diabetes (diabetic neuropathy), or cardiac pump failure (congestive heart failure). When Symbicort appears on the active med list, outpatient CDI commonly checks that the provider’s documentation appropriately reflects asthma classification (intermittent vs persistent), current control, exacerbation status if applicable, and that the condition is being monitored/assessed/treated during the encounter to support reportability and accurate coding.

ICD-10-CM categoryN18 (Chronic kidney disease)is used to reportCKD by stage, including stage-based descriptors andend stage renal disease (ESRD). Within N18, codes identify CKD stage 1 through stage 5,ESRD (stage 5D), and CKD unspecified. Outpatient CDI review focuses on ensuring providers document thestage(often supported by eGFR trends) because stage drives correct code selection and accurately reflects disease severity for risk, quality, and medical necessity. Options that includedialysisare not part of N18 itself; dialysis status and encounter codes are reported elsewhere (e.g., dialysis dependence/status codes), not as N18 category diagnoses.AKI(acute kidney injury) andATN(acute tubular necrosis) are acute renal conditions and are coded outside N18. Likewise, polycystic kidney disease and “uremia” are separate diagnoses with their own code categories. Therefore, the set that correctly matches what N18 represents is CKD stage-based diagnoses such asCKD stage 3, more advanced/severe CKD stages, andESRD.

Under the CMS-HCC model, a beneficiary’s risk score (RAF) is intended to represent the expected cost of caring for that individual relative to an average beneficiary. The score is calculated using two primary inputs: (1) the beneficiary’s demographic factors (such as age, sex, Medicaid status/dual eligibility, disability status, and original reason for Medicare entitlement, depending on the model segment), and (2) the beneficiary’s documented disease burden captured through ICD-10-CM codes that map to Hierarchical Condition Categories (HCCs). Those HCCs reflect the person’s health status and severity, with hierarchy rules preventing “stacking” of related conditions and with certain interaction terms in some model versions. Social determinants are not generally described as the defining basis of the traditional CMS-HCC RAF in CDI education, and “family demographics” are not used. The model is not a mortality predictor; it is a cost/risk prediction tool for payment adjustment. Therefore, the best definition is the beneficiary’s individual demographic and health status.

In outpatient CDI, a prime query opportunity is any diagnosis with unclear “status” that materially affects coding, risk adjustment, surveillance, and care planning. “History of colon cancer” paired with “18 months s/p bowel resection” creates ambiguity: the provider must clarify whether the malignancy is still active (current disease, recurrence, metastasis, ongoing treatment) versus no longer present (history of malignancy, in remission, disease-free status, post-treatment surveillance only). This distinction changes code selection substantially and prevents inappropriate reporting of an active cancer when the encounter is actually follow-up after curative treatment. By contrast, ostomy status is not documented as present, and OSA/COPD “status” may be clinically useful but is not inherently ambiguous from the prompt in the same way (they are listed as chronic problems without a conflicting timeline event). ACDIS outpatient CDI practice prioritizes clarifying cancer status because it impacts longitudinal documentation integrity, accurate problem list management, and compliant diagnosis reporting at each visit.