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Expert Engagement Added to Medicare Billing Course

Learning Community Advances Adult Learning and Retention

SAN DIEGO – November 23, 2016 https://csupalliativecare.org/. Participants who enroll in Billing for Palliative Care Services, an online course offered by the CSU Shiley Institute for Palliative Care, will have a new interactive option, a learning community, introduced to enhance the training they receive in the course.

Learning communities can be defined as groups of people who come together periodically to collaborate on classwork. This learning community will be a virtual group, meeting via a technology-facilitated discussion and idea-exchange forum embedded in the course. Because the community is accessible online to participants, they will be able to connect and interact with peers working in other settings across the country who are also enrolled in the course.

Billing for Palliative Care Services features in-depth information to help practitioners and coding specialists correctly document and bill for the palliative care services they provide. Participants can use the learning community to air their questions, exchange ideas, network and share best practices as they work through the 4-hour self-paced continuing education course. Course authors Janet Bull, MD, FAAHPM, and Jean Acevedo, LHRM, CPC, CHC, CENTC, palliative care billing experts, will be offering their expertise in the learning community as well.

Group of five people in a meeting

Palliative care is a type of care that provides those with a serious or chronic illness – from the time of diagnosis throughout the course of treatment – care that optimizes quality of life by anticipating, preventing, and managing suffering. It is delivered by an interdisciplinary team of physicians, nurses, social workers, chaplains, pharmacists and other practitioners to address the physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual needs of patients and their families.

CSU Shiley Institute for Palliative Care Executive Director Helen McNeal provided the explanation for this new component of this course: “While self-paced courses offer great content, professionals who have taken this and other similar courses have expressed the desire to connect with peers and colleagues in a virtual, time-and-place convenient way to discuss and reflect on what they are learning. The Learning Community we are piloting in Billing for Palliative Care Services will help us shape interactive options to include in future course offerings. Our goal is to continue to create the most effective, unique and rigorous experience for everyone taking our courses.”

The Institute is pleased to implement this learning community for participants who enroll in the Billing for Palliative Care Services course between December 5, 2016 and January 31, 2017. To learn more, review Billing for Palliative Care Services course information.