What outpatient CDI transformations are on your 2026 roadmap? Norwood has 45 in its playbook.

By Jason Jobes

As 2025 draws to a close, a question: How are you feeling about your value-based care efforts? Are you capturing risk across your organization, effectively and compliantly?

Maybe you want to get better.

Maybe you just want to get started. 

If so, here’s a few ideas from a webinar I presented on Tuesday. And here’s the recording; consider it a gift as we head into the holidays.

• Manage your problem lists. Problem list maintenance is a facility-specific decision. We recommend you create a policy; appoint a group that can resolve/remove conditions no longer relevant and can also add conditions, as long as they have been previously coded/billed and are supported with documentation.
• Eliminate provider alert fatigue. Get rid of the noise; don’t put prompts in front of the provider that aren’t relevant to the patient or the provider’s medical decision making. Doing so might result in fewer queries, but fewer succinct, clinically relevant questions will result in improved trust and long-term engagement.
• Segment your risk capture data. For compliance’s sake we recommend you focus on risk score accuracy instead of revenue maximization. Segment your CDI query metrics by opportunity (new conditions CDI identifies that clinicians should evaluate), clarification (conditions that are clinically relevant but a different diagnosis is recommended, often tied to specificity or clinical evolution), and risk (no longer clinically supported). 
• Improve your scheduling. Patient visits are your biggest driver of risk capture, more impactful than even skilled CDI review. Strive to see 95% of your patients in the new year. See below graphic.

I wish you all the best of luck on your value-based care journey in the new year! 

If you want to learn more about our 45 best practices for success in risk adjustment contact me anytime at jason@norwood.com. 

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