How to maintain accurate coding amid staff shortages

How do you help healthcare organizations navigate the biggest challenges in healthcare?

At TruBridge, we’re focused on solving the challenges that community healthcare providers face every day. With decades of experience supporting small- to mid-sized hospitals and clinics, we understand the unique constraints under which these organizations operate. Specifically, with medical coding, organizations are experiencing staffing shortages, complex regulations and rising denial rates, which makes accurate coding more important — and more difficult — than ever.

Understaffed organizations looking for assistance navigating the estimated 30% nationwide shortage of medical coders often look to us for support. Our certified coders bring deep expertise across specialties, ICD-10-CM/PCS, CPT/HCPCS, and compliance standards, ensuring accurate coding to support clean claims that speed reimbursement and protect against audit risk.

We offer flexible support models that scale with each organization’s needs, whether they require full outsourcing, temporary backlog relief or specialty-specific expertise. Our team is trained in the nuances of rural and community healthcare and understands that every hospital is different. While challenges experienced may be similar across the board, the solutions to solve those challenges often require customization for each hospital. By pairing expert coding with technology-enabled workflows and rigorous quality checks, we help organizations reduce denials, improve accuracy and maintain predictable revenue — allowing teams to stay focused on delivering excellent patient care.

What advice would you offer to healthcare leaders when choosing among vendors?

Leaders should look for a vendor that operates as a true extension of their organization — not just a service provider. When evaluating medical coding partners, examine accuracy rates, audit outcomes, turnaround times, and their experience with hospitals similar to yours. It’s important to choose a team that understands the unique challenges of your setting, from resource limitations to rapidly shifting regulatory requirements.

Transparency and communication should also be top priorities. A strong partner provides clear reporting, ongoing performance reviews, and a willingness to adjust workflows as needs evolve. Finally, leaders should ensure the vendor offers scalability and a long-term service model that can adapt as volumes, staffing and financial pressures change.

What is some advice you can give providers for a successful implementation of a new product or service?

Successful implementations begin with clear goals and strong alignment. Providers should establish success criteria upfront — whether reducing discharged, not final billed, improving documentation quality or stabilizing coding capacity. Open communication between internal teams and the vendor is essential; regular touchpoints, defined roles and shared workflows help avoid delays and ensure a smooth transition.

Engaging clinicians early is also important. Coders rely on thorough documentation, and collaboration with clinical staff strengthens both accuracy and compliance. During implementation, providers should monitor performance metrics closely and address any issues in real time.

The most successful organizations view the implementation as the start of an ongoing partnership — not a one-time event. We remain actively involved after go-live, offering continuous quality monitoring, feedback and support so providers see sustained improvements in coding accuracy, revenue reliability and operational efficiency.

Quick Facts

• 8 years on the Short List
• 96% of Peer Review respondents would recommend TruBridge RCM Product Suite to a colleague

About TruBridge

TruBridge proudly supports rural and community healthcare providers in their efforts to stay strong, independent, and deeply rooted in the communities they serve. Backed by more than 45 years of healthcare experience and trusted by over 1,500 clients nationwide, we offer a mix of technology, services, and strategic expertise — including revenue cycle management, electronic health records (EHR) and analytics — all designed singularly for the realities of rural and community healthcare. 

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