Otsego Memorial Hospital Prepares For ICD-10 Transition

By Wendy Grafius, contributing writer

OMH partners with HRAA to lessen potential financial risks associated with ICD-10 transition

Otsego Memorial Hospital (OMH), an acute care facility located in Gaylord, MI, is partnering with Health Revenue Assurance Holdings Inc. (HRAA) through the use of ICDVisualizer in order to evaluate the impact of the upcoming ICD-10 transition on the nonprofit medical facility.

Recognized as one of the nation’s Most Wired Hospitals, according to the results of the 2013 Most Wired Survey released in the July issue of Hospitals & Health Networks magazine, OMH serves the inpatient and outpatient needs of a nine-community region with integrated providers from OMH Medical Group. The facility offers a broad range of services in 27 medical specialties and has adopted a “continued commitment to technology advancements, including the development of patient portal through the OMH Medical Group, full implementation of electronic health records, and electronic bedside medicine administration,” according to Tom Lemon, CEO of OMH.

With the October 1, 2014, ICD-10 deadline forthcoming, all areas of a hospital’s revenue cycle will be affected. OHM officials hope to mitigate financial risks by utilizing HRAA’s multidimensional platform to visualize OHM’s data and to custom-map financial and operational needs. The ICDVisualizer will enable the hospital to determine principal diagnosis codes vulnerable to downgrading, identify unmatched codes from CMS reimbursement maps, and realize the diagnosis-related groups (DRGs) impacted by third party payors in order to estimate the effect on OMH’s cash flow that the expansion from 24,000 to 155,000 medical codes is expected to cause.

The ICDVisualizer business intelligence solution from HRAA will additionally help OMH with outpatient coding issues to determine the best course of action for surgeries dependent on procedure documentation as opposed to high volume ancillary services dependent upon orders. Risks associated with Local Coverage Determinations (LCDs) as they apply to Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS) codes on accounts are identified by staff and specialty. Education offered by HRAA will ensure a smooth transition with continued productivity.  “We are committed to streamlining OMH’s ICD-10 transition utilizing our technology solutions, expertise, and reliability,” said Andrea Clark, HRAA’s Chairman and CEO.

SOURCE: GLOBE NEWSWIRE