By Jan Willis Hierarchical condition category risk adjustment is the system that is being used by the centers of Medicare and Medicaid services in order to be able to properly calculate the cost that an individual enrolled in the Medicare advantage program will likely cost over the time period of a year. HCC risk adjustment is based off of the hierarchical condition categories that are used to code the charts of Medicare advantage enrollees. The hierarchical condition categories describe a number of different health conditions or illnesses that are likely to be an issue in the lives of those enrolled in the Medicare advantage program. Currently there are 87 different categories used in the HCC system, which is a recent increase up from the previous 70 categories that were being used. Each one of the categories is assigned to represent a specific health issue or condition. Each of the conditions that are coded for also has a financial amount assigned to it. These financial a...