AHIMA Issues ICD-10 Call To Action
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
The HIM group continues to work to prevent further implementation delays.
The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) kicked off its 2014 conference in San Diego with a call to arms regarding ICD-10.
This summer, AHIMA launched an advocacy campaign urging its membership to make their voices heard in Washington. As part of this campaign, members have sent more than 7,000 letters to members of Congress and their staff, and made more than 10,000 phone calls. The message, according to HealthData Management: No more delays.
In an earlier call to action to drive Congress forward in implementing ICD-10, AHIMA CEO Lynne Thomas Gordon stated, “The healthcare industry has had an abundance of time to prepare for the ICD-10 transition. Many hospitals, healthcare systems, third-party payors and physicians’ offices have prepared – in good faith – and made critical investments to be ready by the implementation deadline.”
“We know that our industry partners are too heavily invested in the future to allow another postponement. There is no way,” Gordon told the conference during the general session. “The ICD-10 experience has taught us so much about advocacy. We know how to stand up for ourselves. We know how to stand up for our patients, and we are not our mothers’ AHIMA anymore.”
Industry associations including AHIMA were caught off-guard late March when H.R. 4302 – the “Doc-Fix” bill – included legislative language delaying the ICD-10 deadline until October 1, 2015. AHIMA has worked diligently since then to prevent any further congressionally-driven delays.
According to AHIMA officials, however, another delay to ICD-10 is potentially a very real threat. Bills currently in the House and Senate seek to stop the adoption of ICD-10 codes, which HealthData Management writes, “lawmakers argue place undue complexity and costs on an already overburdened healthcare system. The Cutting Costly Codes Acts will be active until January 3, 2015 and could also be reintroduced early next year by the new 114th Congress, assert AHIMA officials.”
“We need to clearly articulate to Congress the value and the impact ICD-10 will have on population health and the consumer,” said Angela Kennedy, president of AHIMA, during Monday’s general session. “We should have been talking about the value of patient information and the classification of disease for population health long before now.”