ABOUT DANA PETRAS, RHIA, CCS, CPC, CDIP, CDEO, CPMA, CRC
Dana Petras is a healthcare information professional who has worked on the front lines of coding, documentation, and education for over a decade. After graduating from the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Professional Studies with a Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Healthcare Information Management (BS-HIM), Dana began her career as a Provider Education Specialist. Auditing medical records, and providing feedback to providers.
Always ready and willing to challenge herself, Dana then took on the dual positions of medical manager and clinical auditor. She has created training material to assist in carrying out in- person training and via Teams/zoom webinars for new and established healthcare providers so they could stay in compliance with both state and federal regulations.
With that experience in hand, Dana worked as a DRG Validation & Denial Appeal Specialist at a large New York hospital. She was tasked with writing appeal letters and validating DRGs (Diagnosis-Related Groups) and AP-DRGs (All Patient Diagnosis-Related Groups). She has prepared cases to go before the administration law judges. She met them to present cases on DRG downgrades on both primary and secondary ICD-10-CM codes.
A key member of the hospital’s appeals team, Dana gained indispensable experience not only in documenting record coding and its issues but in applying her deep knowledge of CMS rules and regulations. Dana is well-versed in all Cloud-based platforms and collaboration tools, including Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Google Meet. She is also comfortable working over the phone.
With over two decades’ experience in the healthcare space, Dana has played key roles as a coder, an auditor, an educator and a compliance manager. She has worked for employers large and small and has thrived in both professional and institutional settings.
A committed learner always seeking to improve her skills and expand her body of knowledge, Dana is committed to providing healthcare professionals with the tools they need to succeed and grow. Whether in established areas like documentation, coding, and auditing – or rapidly expanding areas like X, Y or Z – Dana can help professionals and institutions in the healthcare field realize their goals. Like risk adjustment (HCC), outpatient/IP CDI, telehealth/remote patient monitoring, value-based care & quality reporting (MIPS/HEDIS), denial management & revenue integrity, in addition to coding, auditing and education.