Getting Ready for ICD-10
By: Candice Smith Unless you live on a remote island or have absolutely nothing at all to do with billing at your Medical Practice, you’re probably well aware ICD-10 is coming in October 2013. Many people are dreading the transition. When I first heard about it, I thought, “This is going to be a nightmare.” But as I’ve started the process of getting my team at HealthCARE Express Billing ready for the transition, we have all realized it really is going to be for the better for the billing and coding world. Ultimately it will improve cash flow and your bottom line. Benefits of ICD-10 As medicine and technology advance, ICD-10 will help in the detail needed to appropriate reimbursement and will also improve access to data needed for making clinical and financial decisions. Additionally, payers will have more detailed information when processing claims with only a limited need for medical records. This could speed up processing of claims by as much as 10 days. Another benefit of ICD-10 is all information will be transmitted electronically, decreasing processing times for claims. Another perk to ICD-10 is it will be easier to identify medical necessity because of how detailed the codes are. This will decrease the number of appeals you have to file. Preparing for ICD-10 My advice to you would not be to wait until the last minute to get ready for ICD-10. You should start making a plan now and begin moving forward with important steps to ensure you’re ready when October 2013 arrives. Some of the steps you need to take include: Step 1: Select an EHR If you do not yet have an Electronic Health Record (EHR), selecting one is the first step you need to take to get ready for implementation of ICD-10. If you already have an EHR, contact them and make sure your 5010 format has been started. While you’re talking with them, ask them if they are going to support ICD-10 and make the necessary updates in order to accommodate the change. Step 2: IT Department Your IT Department needs to be ready to update software and hardware that will come as implementation happens. Step 3: Training Plan A lot of changes will happen when ICD-10 starts. Before October 2013, your nursing staff, front desk staff, billing team, lab & x-ray team, and your physicians should undergo an introductory training to ICD-10 on documenting. Step 4: Set a Budget Set-up a budget and start saving now for expected and unexpected expenses that will be associated with ICD-10. Some expenses to plan for include: overtime, physician salaries, software, hardware, and training time. Step 5: Implementation Plan Evaluate all areas of your business that will be affected by ICD-10, then create a plan to ensure all areas are prepared. This will include things like revisiting all policies and procedures that will be affected by ICD-10 and adjusting them to fit the new implementation. You should also assess your current level of documentation and coding capabilities. If you have a coding and documentation issue at this point, then it’s not going to get better after ICD-10 is implemented. Start off by scheduling trainings quarterly up until October 2013. This training should include providers and billing staff in the beginning. There are lots of seminars and webinars available to keep you in loop in getting your staff familiar with the new changes. ALL administrative staff should meet also in order to coordinator the trainings and keep posted on any new information developing.
