Help Ease The ICD-10 Transition

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Are you confident in your ICD-10 preparedness plan?

With the October ICD-10 transition looming, many providers are tearing their hair out as they muck their way through the swamp of costly changes awaiting implementation. As with all projects of this magnitude, education is vital and Greenway has provided an infographic, “ICD-10: Making The Complex Simple”, that provides some useful hints for easing some of the frustrations associated with the coming changes.

Yet despite all of the press and advice, it seems that many practices are not on track. The institution of the new coding system, though bringing many benefits for diagnosis in the long run, is placing a great financial burden on healthcare providers, as Healthcare IT Outcomes reports. High costs, the need for new technology, and the time and resources necessary for training all have slowed preparations for the transition. Numerous surveys suggest the biggest piece missing in the transition is the end-to-end testing of the new coding system.

And despite the growing pressure on CMS, there will be no delays in the final deadline for implementation, as reported by Healthcare IT Outcomes. Yet, it is clear that adoption of the ICD-10 coding system need not be a death sentence, if it is handled appropriately by healthcare providers.

To ascertain the state of readiness of healthcare providers, NueMD is conducting a survey “to gauge healthcare professionals’ attitudes toward the ICD-10 transition. We’re aiming to evaluate the general perception of ICD-10 as well as anticipated effects it will have on specific business areas (finance, operations, etc.).” More information about the survey is available on a NueMD blog post.

The survey, which takes approximately seven minutes to complete, is open to all healthcare professionals, and all responses will be confidential. The results will be published as interactive charts on NueMD’s ICD-10 infocenter, and all participants will be notified as soon as the results are posted. No personal information of respondents will be included in the survey results.

The goal is to “take the pulse of the industry and offer an educational resource that healthcare professionals can use to better prepare for the transition.” NueMD further hopes the survey will help healthcare providers, billers, and office staff benchmark against their peers, and will serve as a “sanity check” as the Oct. 1 deadline approaches. The results may also be of use to software vendors and HIT consultants by providing insight that can help them adapt to their clients’ attitudes and provide better service.