2026 THIMA Annual Meeting:
Trailblazing Together: Mapping the Future of HIM
Overview
Monday — March 23, 2026
Simplifying data governance interdependencies across HIM and Health IT, AI Types, and mastering Data Governance
Learning Objectives:
- How to reconsider governance in your organization
- Various types of AI
- How to stand out as a leader in AI data governance in your organization
In the rapidly evolving landscape of cybersecurity, healthcare organizations face an ever-increasing threat of data breaches and cyber attacks. The aftermath of such incidents often reveals the critical importance of addressing data redundancy to ensure resilience and continuity. This presentation aims to explore data redundancy in the context of cybersecurity events, emphasizing the significance of proactive measures in safeguarding sensitive information.
Learning Objectives:
- Recognize the potential consequences of cyber threats on organizational information assets, including data breaches and compromise.
- Gain insights into how information governance practices, including data redundancy, align with industry-specific regulations and compliance standards.
- Explore real-world case studies to understand successful and unsuccessful instances of information governance and data redundancy implementation in response to cybersecurity events.
As healthcare organizations continue to mature with technology solutions, it has become increasingly critical to evaluate the need to archive and govern critical data. In this session, we will explore the fundamentals for archiving data from core and legacy systems and the tools and features needed to make this data not only accessible to other systems and users but governed by retention policies. We will examine the use of an enterprise content management (ECM) system as the solution for data archival and the key features that could turn data into protected, searchable, and shareable content.
Learning Objectives:
- Understand opportunities to archive legacy data with ECM.
- Employ ECM strategies and functions for archived data to elevate access and deliver insights.
- Discover ECM tools to govern data with retention policies and automated notification workflows.
In this session, we will explore how HI professionals can optimize effective collaboration with other critical stakeholders within your organization. This collaborative effort will enable organizations to recognize the strategic significance of information governance and how leveraging it can enhance healthcare quality and cost-effectiveness.
Learning Objectives:
- Recognize the importance of stakeholder collaboration in healthcare organization leadership
- Explore communication strategies and conflict resolution methods tailored to the healthcare information environment.
- Formulate a strategic action plan, encompassing stakeholder identification, engagement strategies, and communication plans.
HIM professionals can achieve success and career growth within revenue cycle management (RCM). Professionals must develop a mix of technical, analytical, and leadership skills. The learning objectives outlined in this presentation focus performance indicators within front, middle, and back end revenue cycle operations.
As the guardians of protected health information (PHI), health information professionals are at the forefront of balancing patient access rights with privacy safeguards. This presentation explores the evolving landscape of HIPAA regulations — focusing on the legal, ethical and operational dimensions of sensitive information and patient access to their health data. Through real-world scenarios and regulatory updates, attendees will gain clarity on what constitutes appropriate access, how to manage sensitive disclosures, and how to navigate the tension between compliance and patient empowerment. The session will also address emerging challenges in digital health records, third-party apps, and patient-directed sharing.
Learning Objectives:
- Interpret key provisions of the HIPAA Privacy Rule related to patient access and data ownership
- Identify common compliance pitfalls and best practices in releasing sensitive health information
- Evaluate the impact of emerging technologies and patient-directed apps on HIPAA compliance and privacy
Tuesday — March 24, 2026
Learning Objectives:
- Review the rules of the Payor game to get paid-Identify the pitfalls that prevent payment-Play the game
Health care administrators are making denials management a number one priority. Over twelve (12%) of hospital claims are initially denied costing health systems up to two (2%) of net patient revenue and that number continues to rise. Ninety percent (90%) of those claims are preventable yet only a fraction is appealed or responded to due to lack of resources resulting lost revenue. Health care administrators and CFOs have also identified claim denials as their organizations biggest challenge.This presentation will address the impact of denials; top causes of denials; analyze the root cause of denials and trends to reduce denials and claim rejections; how to mitigate root causes; and, improving the efficiency of appeals process to minimize revenue leakage and maximize collections. We will also discuss measuring and reporting the success of the denials management and prevention program.
Learning Objectives:
- Identifying root cause of denialsAddressing denialsSuccessful appeals letter writing
Fraud, Waste, and Abuse has become more prevalent in the healthcare industry over the years, with a new wave of tactics to attempt to obtain patient information in a deceptive manner. The presentation will cover key tools to utilize to identify these types of requests and how to block these nefarious requestors.
HIM professionals are critical to ensuring the accuracy of all HIPAA-related code transaction sets applicable to reimbursement and measurements of quality and cost efficiency. Dr. James S. Kennedy, a native of East Tennessee (Chattanooga, Oak Ridge, Knoxville), a graduate of the University of Tennessee Memphis, and a Middle Tennessean since 1983, will outline Tennessee-specific ICD-10-CM/PCS-pertinent quality and cost efficiency measures affecting Tennessee facilities and providers as to suggest data-driven proactive roles that HIM professionals and their medical staffs can implement the following Monday.
This presentation provides an overview of AI and AI use cases in HIM. Participants will be given and overview of current policy and regulatory status of AI in healthcare as well as resources to keep up with the evolution of AI.
Learning Objectives:
- Recognize resources for AI resources
- Identify Policy issues around AI
- Recognize the types of AI
- Describe ways that AI can be utilized in health information management
- Describe ethical and legal issues surrounding the use of GenAI with community bias, digital literacy and access
- Describe cultural issues with the use of GenAI—models lack moral constraints
- Obtain literacy with the use of GenAI–learn how to use AI expertise to help make decisions
Friday — March 27, 2026
Many organizations have made enormous strides in data exchange and interoperability — but that progress can stall if the data delivered isn’t usable in daily clinical, administrative, or public health workflows. The Data Usability: Taking Root initiative (co-sponsored by The Sequoia Project and AHIMA) offers a practical roadmap, community, and pledge framework to embed usability into interoperability. This session will introduce THIMA attendees to the movement, show the concrete benefits of usable data, and encourage participants to become pledging supporters or implementers in Tennessee’s health data ecosystem.
Attendees will leave with a clear understanding of how joining the pledge can deliver value locally, how to begin implementing usability practices immediately, and how to leverage the community for peer support toward adoption.
From paper to digital to AI, our HIM world is everchanging. So how do we cultivate growth and nourish our current workforce while promoting a new generation of HIM professionals?
Course Info
Published Date
March 2026
Total CEs
14.0
Domain(s)
Data Structure, Content and Information Governance
Evolving Topics
Health Law and Compliance
Informatics, Analytics and Data Use
Information Protection: Access, Disclosure, Archival, Privacy and Security
Organizational Management and Leadership
Revenue Cycle Management
Pricing
THIMA Member
$375
Non-Member
$435
Student
$0
THIMA Member – an AHIMA dues-paying member who has selected Tennessee as their Component Association (CA)
Non-Member – includes AHIMA dues-paying members from other AHIMA Component Associations (CA) as well as AHIMA Credentialed Non-Members
Learn More
Speaker
Name
Additional Information
AHIMA
This educational offering has been approved for continuing education credit for use in fulfilling the continued education requirements of the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA).
AAPC
CEUs are accepted from programs sponsored by AHIMA national offices and the state or regional AHIMA branches. One hour of instruction is worth one CEU. A certificate of attendance or completion is necessary to show participation.
ACDIS
AHIMA CEUs that are CDI-related are accepted.
Register
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Registration will close at 11:59 PM ET on December 31, 2026.
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Course Content
Course Includes
- 17 Lessons
- Course Certificate
