News Feature | April 20, 2015

WEDI Survey Reveals Lack Of ICD-10 Readiness

Christine Kern

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

ICD-10 Delay

Compliance date uncertainty and issues with testing and product availability cited.

WEDI, a nonprofit authority on the use of health IT to create efficiencies in healthcare information exchange, has released findings from its 10th ICD-10 Industry Readiness Survey conducted in February 2015. Unfortunately, the findings are not good, including:

  • Compliance date uncertainty: The primary obstacle to implementation remains uncertainty regarding further delays, with more than 50 percent of respondents listing it as a concern.
  • Health plan testing: There was a slight improvement from the prior survey in the number of health plans that have begun external testing, now at more than 50 percent, but of these, only a few have completed testing.
  • Vendor product availability: The number of respondents who reported that their vendor products were available or had started customer testing fell slightly to about 60 percent from about two-thirds in the August 2014 survey. However, the number that responded ‘unknown’ decreased from one eighth to just a handful.  
  • Provider testing: Perhaps most troubling, only a quarter of provider respondents had begun external testing, with just a few others reporting that they had completed this step. This marks a decrease from the about 35 percent of provider respondents that had begun external testing in the August 2014 survey.

The survey results are based on responses from 1,174 respondents, consisting of 796 providers, 173 vendors and 205 health plans. The number of responses more than doubled from the last ICD-10 survey WEDI conducted in August 2014.

In a letter to HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell, WEDI expressed concern many organizations had not taken full advantage of the additional time afforded by the one-year delay. The group further warned, “Based on the survey results, it appears the delay has had a negative impact on some readiness activities. Uncertainty over further delays was listed as a top obstacle across all industry segments. Some tasks have slipped into 2015, particularly those related to testing. It appears clear that while the delay provided more time for the transition to ICD-10, many organizations did not take full advantage of this time.”

The letter’s author, WEDI past-chair Jim Daley, adds, “Unless all industry segments make a dedicated and aggressive effort to move forward with their implementation efforts in the next few months, there will be significant disruption to industry claims processing on October 1, 2015. Regardless, we encourage all organizations to establish plans for addressing any unforeseen events that may occur during the transition.”