Forum Faculty

Nelly Leon-Chisen, RHIA

Nelly Leon-Chisen, RHIA, is the Director of the Coding and Classification at the American Hospital Association where she is responsible for leading the Central Office on ICD-9-CM.  The Central Office, in cooperation with the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), serves as the authoritative source on ICD-9-CM relative to health care payment systems, statistical reporting, and health services research.  She represents the AHA as one of the four ICD-9-CM Cooperating Parties.  She is also the executive editor of Coding Clinic for ICD-9-CM and Coding Clinic for HCPCS.

She has represented the AHA on other national groups such as the CPT-5 Project Advisory Group, Medicare Technical Advisory Group Outpatient Workgroup, ICD-10-PCS Technical Advisory Group, Panel to Evaluate the U.S. Standard Certificates, HEDIS Coding Users Panel, and ICD-9-CM Coordination and Maintenance Committee. She was co-chair of the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI) ICD-10 Implementation Workgroup. She also serves as staff to the AHA representative to the CPT Editorial Panel. She co-chaired the joint AHA-AHIMA ICD-10-CM Field Testing Project and was the technical lead for the AHA-AHIMA Facility Evaluation and Management (E/M) Code Development Expert Panel.

She has over 30 years experience in the health information management field including consulting, teaching, technical and management experience in hospital health information management departments. She is a Past President of the Chicago Area Health Information Management Association and a recipient of the Professional Achievement Award from the Illinois Health Information Management Association.

She has lectured extensively on coding, DRG and data quality issues throughout the United States and internationally. She has also testified on behalf of the American Hospital Association at numerous National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics hearings on ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS.

She is a Registered Health Information Administrator and holds a B.S. in Medical Record Administration from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a B.A. in History and English from Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago.

She is responsible for the annual revisions to the best-selling AHA Press publication "Faye Brown's ICD-9-CM Coding Handbook" and has authored its ICD-10-CM/PCS chapters.