Prepare yourselves: Less than 300 days to ICD-10

This time next year, practices not using the ICD-10 code set for their billing will not receive a dollar for their services. The CMS has announced September 30, 2015 as the date until which the ICD-9 diagnosis codes will be used. The very next day, on October 1, every practice across the nation will need to use ICD-10 codes if they want to get paid.

Yes the changes will be huge, as the current ICD-9 code set contains roughly 13,000 outpatient diagnostic codes while ICD-10 has around 68,000. Yes, the codes will become more complex and detailed (with more characters and subdivisions), and physicians will need to learn them all over again.

However, technology has resulted in this alteration, and technology will aide in the adoption; EHR vendors will eventually come up with quick and efficient conversion, mapping and support tools so that providers can switch to the new codes with ease.

Keeping this aside, there’s still a lot you need to do. First of all, immediately get in touch with your EHR vendor and inquire as to his ICD-10 readiness. This is because no matter how prepared you are, if you EHR vendor isn’t ready; your efforts will go down the drain.

Get a new, ICD-10 ready Electronic Health Records (EHR) now rather than later if that’s the case. Most EHR Vendors will also give you an overview of the conversion process, and teach you more via a paid consultation. Next, get in touch with your clearinghouses, billing company, and insurance carriers to check on their status; you’ll get more advice as to getting started from these sources too.

The next step is to establish how your documentation, e-Superbills and reporting will change when ICD-10 is applied. Consult the above-mentioned sources, the internet, government support sources and other providers determine this.

When you’re done with this, your staff needs to be made aware of how their roles will change, and provide them with the required training for ICD-10. This will ensure a very smooth conversion, and keep disruptions to your practice workflows at a minimum.

Conduct both internal and external testing at least a couple of months before October to see how well you’ve adopted to the workflow changes, and so you can make alterations to bridge your shortcomings before the October date.

The time to ICD-10 is decreasing, so make sure that you’re ready before October 2015 to prevent the loss of revenue and the disruption of workflows at your practice. 

Read more about: How will my claim submission process change with ICD-10?