In a recent public comment letter, the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) chided the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) about extending the compliance deadline to October 1, 2014 for adoption of the International Classification of Diseases 10th Revision code sets. As the AHIMA ruefully points out, many members of the healthcare community squandered the three years HHS gave them for the ICD-10 upgrade.
Modern Healthcare brought this news to our attention in their article, “Use carrots to get ICD-10 compliance.” In the letter, the AHIMA urged HHS to continue to help healthcare players implement ICD-10, but predicted that “more time, by itself,” is of no help and will most likely encourage procrastinators.
Medical coding requires specialized expertise and systems tailored to the regulatory requirements in which health care providers, hospitals, and doctors deliver their services. Access Innovations, Inc., a leader in data integrity and content creation, offers tools and services for quality assurance and validation of medical coding. The cost savings are potentially huge.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.
