Clinical
Affairs News
VP for Clinical Services,
Sharon Sowder, M.A., CCC-SLP
The following areas are
some of the areas addressed by the Clinical Services/Affairs section of
MSHA:
Reimbursement Issues with Medicare, Medicaid, and Private Insurance
Minority Student Leadership Program
Member Education
Clarification of CPT Codes and Billing
Licensure Issues
Assistance with interaction with other professionals about the services we
provide and our Scope of Practice
STAR Representative to ASHA
Consumer Advocacy
Health Insurance Advocacy
For more information or to
express interest in any of the above mentioned areas, please contact me
via e-mail at meow1117200@yahoo.com.
DOCUMENTATION EXAMPLES FOR COGNITIVE DISORDERS
Language/Cognitive
Disorder - Evaluation Summary
Evaluation of patient’s deficits indicated expressive aphasia. This
disorder was characterized by anomia (naming disorder). Patient was
unable to recall names of persons, places, and/or objects to communicate
basic and medical needs. Patient could, however, follow simple directions
and could recall the names of common objects when compensatory techniques
were introduced (paring of auditory/visual stimuli) suggesting that the
patient would benefit from skilled intervention. Patient also
demonstrated attention deficits which made it difficult for patient to
concentrate on evaluation materials. Additional training and instruction
will be needed to help patient improve their ability to focus on
therapeutic tasks so that language skills can improve.
Progress Notes: Language/Cognitive Deficits
Visit One: Patient seen to improve word naming skills. Patient
trained in use of auditory and visual stimuli to facilitate verbal
expression related to medical needs. Additional training to improve
attention to therapeutic task provided (tactile cueing). Attentional
training procedures helped patient focus on auditory/visual stimuli and
enabled patient to recall names of body parts and medications necessary
for patient’s care.
Speech/Cognitive Deficits - Evaluation Summary
Patient’s deficits were
characterized by moderate dysarthria affecting ability to produce clear
speech for basic and medical needs. Tongue and lip strength and range of
motion were not adequate for production of understandable speech.
Potential for improvement, however, is positive since patient has partial
control of tongue and lip muscles and can follow directions. Additional
deficits include a mild cognitive disorder characterized by short term
memory problems and reasoning difficulties. Training and instruction in
use of specific compensatory strategies (visual aids and reduction in use
of specific compensatory strategies (visual aids and reduction in rate of
word and phrase presentation) should adequately address the cognitive
deficits so that the patient can benefit from training and instruction to
improve speech intelligibility for the expression of basic and medical
needs.
Progress Notes: Speech/Cognitive Deficits
Visit One: Patient seen to improve speech intelligibility related to
medical needs. Trained to increase tongue range of motion. Visual aids
introduced as necessary to compensate for short term memory disorder.
Pictures presented helped patient identify target tongue positions in oral
cavity. This resulted in improved pronunciation of words beginning with
/l/, /t/, and/d/ sounds (leg/teeth/doctor).