How To Ensure Your ICD-10 Remediation Plan Is Working Beyond October

By Brian Diaz, Director of Marketing with Health Language, part of Wolters Kluwer Health

As your healthcare organization prepares to implement ICD-10 codes you’ll need your clinical and IT departments to develop a remediation plan that not only meets the October 1, 2015 deadline, but ensures that your organization realizes the benefits of ICD-10 implementation far beyond the deadline date.

With limited time and resources, providers who have received training in the ICD-10-CM and PCS code sets know they’ll have to grapple with moving from about 16,000 to approximately 150,000 ICD-10 CM/PCS codes, but this is only part of the story.

The introduction of the expanded alphabet in the code sets has meant that field lengths and available characters are increasing. Additionally, there are substantial changes in the official Coding Guidelines. For example, ICD-9 encounter codes (V codes) for rehabilitation are no longer acceptable as a principal diagnosis and coders are required to assign the medical condition as the reason for the encounter when coding in ICD-10.

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