Help is Available
Most healthcare organizations were pleased with the year delay for the ICD-10 implementation, but October 2014 is still coming fast. The transition efforts should not be relaxed.
What is the Financial Burden?
Many are concerned about the financial burden that the ICD-10 implementation might create for healthcare providers. However, there are some ways the physicians can improve the clinical documentation and therefore the coding reimbursements. Being creatures of habit, they have tended to rely on memorized codes. If the reliance on memorization is minimized, reimbursements can improve. There are more anatomic specific codes in the new system, and that makes memorization even more difficult.
AHIMA Recommends Preparation
In the middle of the AMA and other professional organizations still seeking to get the ICD-10 coding classification transition delayed or stopped completely, the Association for Health Information Management (AHIMA) is encouraging providers to not stop and wait, but to continue training and preparing.
Training is Even More Important
ICD-10 is no longer a foreign term to anyone in healthcare and now technology. It is a comprehensive, internationally used list designed to code for diseases and other healthcare conditions. It is scheduled to be implemented in two years on October 1, 2014. This switch to ICD-10 requires software updates and staff training. These are challenges for most and require some help.
Debating the Issue
We just reported yesterday on the American Medical Association's (AMA) continued battle to stop the ICD-10 coding classification transition that is due to be finished in October 2014. Today, we learn about the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) responses to their protests.
Fighting the ICD-10
Even with the deadline coming faster and faster, the American Medical Association continues their resistance to the ICD-10 coding classification transition.
Financial Side of ICD-10
We have talked about the various concerns of the impending ICD-10 conversion for quite some time now. Implementing the new coding classification system will have impact on many areas of healthcare, but let us not forget the financial markets and how this could change investors’ views of healthcare organizations.
The Countdown Continues
It is now 2013 and that means healthcare providers will be ramping up their efforts to prepare for the ICD-10 coding classification transition scheduled for October 1, 2014. Providers are scrambling to be prepared in all ways.
Financial Concerns Around ICD-10
As October 1, 2014 approaches, many are working hard preparing for the ICD-9 to ICD-10 coding classification transition. To not be ready would put HIPAA-covered healthcare organizations in a dire position – one without operating capital. Noncompliance would prohibit them from billing for services rendered.
Challenges Ahead
Every year new challenges present themselves. Sometimes it is in technology, sometimes it is in process, and sometimes it is all of the above. This year and most likely next year, the biggest challenge healthcare organizations are facing involves the ICD-10 coding classification transition. With the deadline postponed to October 2014, that gives an extra year to worry, and plan.