Should you follow the ACDIS/AHIMA query brief? I say yes: Here’s why.

By Brian Murphy

Should you follow the ACDIS/AHIMA query brief? <= Not rage-bait, honest question.

Earlier this year ACDIS/AHIMA issued a new physician query practice brief. It started with a draft, subject to public comment (I put in a couple myself), followed by a final brief, ACDIS/AHIMA Guidelines for Achieving a Compliant Query Practice—2026 Update, issued August 20. See link below.

That got me thinking bigger picture about the brief itself—and whether we should follow it. I’ve asked this question rhetorically before, but here’s my answer.

You can ignore the brief. There are no query police coming for you.

But you shouldn’t. You should follow it.

Here’s why (note: I’m thinking out loud here, and very much welcome your commentary and disagreement).

To be clear, the query brief is not a regulation. There is some authority behind it (AHIMA is a Cooperating Party, one of four who creates the ICD-10 codes) but the query brief is not the effort of the cooperating parties. It’s industry best practice by an association.

However, an authoritative body with a large membership and industry clout creates, updates, and issues the brief. As such it reflects the consensus of organizations that have significant influence within the coding and CDI professions.

We call that an institution.

At their best, institutions encourage people to come together to solve a problem. They share ideas, agree, disagree, and work toward a productive resolution.

Many of our oldest institutions are fracturing or crumbling, from education to the judiciary to healthcare. Not everyone likes them.

I believe we need them, even if we don’t agree with everything they produce. I believe we need to rebuild institutions, not destroy them. There is value to working within established frameworks, and in a cooperative manner.

I believe there is intrinsic value to community and consensus, even in our hyper-individualized, fragmented, screen-of-one modern state. It’s far better than a thousand fractured and independent actors each following their own course, to whatever end.

We’re a country of ideas, and people working together can often produce something that any individual actor could not alone.

That said, institutions need to be audited; they need to be accountable to their constituents.

Regulations cannot be so rigid as to warp clinical reality or discourage innovation.

So what can we do?

Make the frameworks within our institutions. Allow public input. Revise. This is what’s happening now.

And then, ultimately, I think we need to follow them. Continue to challenge them, improve on them, but follow the extant guidance.

Agree/disagree?

Brian would love to hear from you: Send him an email at brian.murphy@norwood.com.

Read ACDIS/AHIMA Guidelines for Achieving a Compliant Query Practice—2026 Update here: https://acdis.org/resources/acdisahima-guidelines-achieving-compliant-query-practice%E2%80%942026-update