Free ACDIS CCDS-O Practice Exam with Questions & Answers | Set: 4

The documentation shows a patient with advanced COPD (GOLD stage 3) who now requires an increase in home oxygen to 3 liters, along with escalation of respiratory therapies (home nebulizers and systemic steroids). In outpatient CDI, an increased or ongoing home oxygen requirement is a strong clinical indicator that the provider may be managingchronic respiratory failure(or chronic hypoxemic respiratory failure), which is more clinically meaningful than simply documenting oxygen use as a status. “Oxygen dependence” is a status code and does not fully describe the underlying physiologic impairment driving the need for oxygen; chronic respiratory failure captures the severity and ongoing nature of the condition and better reflects risk, complexity, and medical necessity for durable oxygen therapy. Querying for pneumonia organism specificity is not as relevant in a follow-up visit unless pneumonia is still being actively treated and the organism is known. Querying COPD acuity (e.g., exacerbation) may be appropriate, but the most significant clarification prompted by increased home O2 is whether chronic respiratory failure is present and being managed.

The CMS-HCC model is arisk adjustmentmethodology used primarily to setcapitated paymentsfor Medicare Advantage (MA) organizations based on the expected cost of caring for their enrolled beneficiaries. Under this approach, CMS calculates a Risk Adjustment Factor (RAF) for each member using demographic variables (such as age/sex and certain entitlement factors) plus disease burden captured from ICD-10-CM diagnoses that map to Hierarchical Condition Categories (HCCs). The resulting RAF increases or decreases the plan’s payment to better match predicted healthcare needs—higher RAF for sicker, more complex patients and lower RAF for healthier patients. ACDIS outpatient CDI education emphasizes that the purpose is not physician reimbursement based on a “principal diagnosis” (an inpatient concept) and not payment distribution tied directly to quality performance (that aligns more with MIPS/VBP frameworks). It also does not adjust capitation payments specifically “to physicians,” nor does it exclude advanced practice providers in the way described. The correct use is todetermine MA plan capitation paymentsthrough risk-adjusted member-level projections.

In ambulatory CDI, “risk adjustment impact” means the clarification can change whether an HCC-relevant condition is captured accurately (or captured at all) based on ICD-10-CM reporting rules. Here, “DM2 with peripheral neuropathy with diabetic ulcer” already establishes diabeteswith complications, so querying option B adds little—complications are already documented. “Nicotine dependence” is not supported because the patient stopped smoking two years ago; at most, this supports a history of nicotine dependence, which generally does not drive HCC risk scoring. “Morbid obesity” may be clinically relevant (BMI 43 supports it), but obesity typically does not produce meaningful CMS-HCC risk adjustment impact compared with other chronic categories. Thediabetic ulcerdoes matter: correct reporting requires an additional L97.- code that depends onulcer severity/depth(skin breakdown, fat layer exposed, necrosis of muscle/bone). Clarifying depth supports accurate ulcer severity coding and can affect HCC capture/validation for chronic ulcer burden.

Outpatient CDI practice supports accurate, provider-validated diagnoses; CDI should not “diagnose,” direct the provider to add a specific condition, or independently add diagnoses to the claim. Here, the documentation shows clinical indicators (fatigue/lethargy and hemoglobin drop from 10.4 to 8.6) and a treatment plan (oral iron and repeat H/H), but the provider has not stated a definitive diagnosis such as postoperative anemia, iron deficiency anemia, acute blood loss anemia, or anemia due to chronic disease. The best CDI action is to issue a compliant query that summarizes the relevant indicators and treatment and asks the provider to document the appropriate diagnosis and etiology, if clinically supported, and to link it to the plan of care. Option A is inappropriate because it leads the provider toward a specific diagnosis. Option D is noncompliant because coding must follow documented provider diagnoses. Option B may be a reasonable internal check, but it does not resolve the documentation gap.

For outpatient/observation encounters, the first-listed diagnosis is the condition chiefly responsible for the services provided during that encounter. In this scenario, the patient’s ambulatory surgery (herniorrhaphy) has already occurred, and the reason the patient is now in observation is explicitly documented as “post procedural urinary retention.” That makes urinary retention the condition driving the extended monitoring, evaluation, and management in observation status. Benign prostatic hyperplasia and an adverse reaction to anesthesia are documented only as possible etiologies (“likely related to…or…”), and outpatient guidelines do not support coding uncertain diagnoses expressed as “likely” or as alternative possibilities without definitive confirmation. Therefore, those potential causes would not replace the confirmed problem that necessitated observation. The hernia was the reason for the procedure, but it is not the reason for the postoperative observation services described. Outpatient CDI practice reinforces documenting the clinical reason for observation and clearly distinguishing confirmed postoperative complications from suspected causes to support correct first-listed selection.

When a CDI query references information from an externally shared note, best practice is to include enough identifying detail so the provider can locate and validate the sourceeven if access is later revokedor if the shared record becomes unavailable. From an outpatient CDI and HIPAA-aligned workflow perspective, the query should clearly cite: where the information came from (thelocationof the shared note within the EHR/external record set),whoauthored it (provider name),whenit was created (date of shared note), and thespecific clinical documentationbeing referenced (the relevant statement/findings). This supports transparency, auditability, and minimizes the risk of misattribution or relying on inaccessible information. Options B–D are missing one or more critical elements—most notably the date and/or location of the shared note—making it harder to verify the source. Including “follow-up procedure” is not the priority for HIPAA-compliant source identification; the key need is traceability of the external documentation used to support the clarification request.

In outpatient CDI practice, a common reason to query is a mismatch between what is being evaluated/treated and what is explicitly documented as an active condition for the encounter. A diagnostic chest x-ray aligns with the already-documented symptom (chronic cough), and a nutrition specialist referral aligns with an established diagnosis (obesity); neither inherently suggests an undocumented condition. Prescribing captopril aligns with documented HTN management, so it generally would not create documentation ambiguity requiring clarification (even though ACE inhibitors can be associated with cough, the plan alone does not establish a new reportable diagnosis). In contrast, ordering an HbA1c often signals assessment for diabetes, impaired glucose regulation, or monitoring of known diabetes. Because diabetes is not listed in the history provided, the HbA1c order may prompt the CDI specialist to query whether the provider is evaluating a suspected or existing glycemic disorder, whether there is a diagnosis such as prediabetes/diabetes being addressed, and to ensure the record clearly supports the medical necessity and any reportable condition.

In the outpatient follow-up setting, when the acute stroke event has occurred in the recent past and the patient is now being evaluated for residual deficits, documentation and coding should focus on thesequelae(late effects) rather than re-coding the acute infarction itself—unless the provider clearly states the stroke is still in the acute phase and being actively treated as such. ACDIS outpatient CDI principles stress selecting the diagnosis that best reflects the reason for today’s encounter and the condition being assessed/managed. Here, the ongoing clinical issue driving follow-up care is the persistent neurologic deficit (right-sided weakness/hemiparesis) after the cerebral infarction. Option C is the most specific and clinically accurate because it captures (1) the relationship to the prior cerebral infarction (“following cerebral infarction”) and (2) laterality and dominance (“right dominant side”), which improves code specificity and reflects functional impact. Option A incorrectly keeps the focus on an unspecified cerebral infarction rather than the residual deficit, and option D is too nonspecific compared with a clearly described hemiparesis.

The strongest CDI query opportunity is clarifying whether the UTI iscatheter-associated. The patient has anindwelling Foley catheter, significant leukocytosis (WBC 20), apositive urine culture for E. coli, and is being treated with antibiotics for UTI—these indicators raise a clear question about theetiology of infectionand whether it is related to the urinary catheter. In outpatient CDI practice, linking the infection to a device (when clinically supported) improves documentation accuracy, supports correct code assignment, and has important quality and compliance implications because catheter-associated UTIs are captured differently than uncomplicated UTIs. By comparison, querying the “etiology of BPH” is not supported as an immediate gap (BPH is already stated), and the “etiology of low back pain” is less directly tied to the documented treatment focus (UTI management). “Leukocytosis” is a lab finding that is already objectively supported and often represents a symptom/abnormal result rather than the principal clarification needed. Therefore, confirming whether the UTI is related to the Foley catheter is the best, most clinically anchored query.

A yes/no query format is considered compliant when it is used toresolve a clear documentation conflictand the provider is being asked to confirm which statement accurately reflects the patient’s condition for that encounter. In these situations, the intent is not to introduce a new diagnosis or steer the provider toward a particular coded outcome, but to reconcile inconsistent information already present in the record (e.g., one clinician documents a condition and another documents the opposite, or different notes describe different statuses). A focused yes/no confirmation can be appropriate because the clinical question is essentially binary: which interpretation is correct. By contrast, obtaining a new diagnosis generally requires an open-ended or multiple-choice format with balanced options (including “unable to determine”) and strong encounter-specific indicators to avoid leading. Likewise, organism specification and acuity clarification often involvemore than two clinically valid possibilities(different organisms, acute vs chronic vs acute-on-chronic, etc.), making yes/no overly restrictive and potentially leading. Therefore, resolving conflicting documentation is the best fit for a compliant yes/no query.