The U.S. will transition to ICD-10 sooner or later. The expanded code set is significant and should help lead to more accurate payments, but only if providers invest the necessary resources in systems and training. That is why you need to start now in planning for ICD-10. This is not something one can wait to the last minute.
Questions to ask, tasks to complete
- Who will lead the transition? Who from billing, coding, and clinical will be involved?
- Do you have a transition plan? Is it detailed with assigned responsibilities and task timeframes? Have you added an ICD-10 budget line item?
- Do you know how ICD-10 will affect business processes? How will you assess the changes needed?
- How will documentation detail need to change to accomodate the new coding?
- What is the staff training plan? How soon will it begin?
- Are your insurance payers and vendors ready? What is their plan? Payers and vendors will be ready at different times, can your EMR/PM accomodate and process using both versions?
- What is your testing plan? How many systems are affected?
- Will any of your vendors give you a price break by allowing you to be a beta site for their systems and transition plan?
This transition will be difficult and will require significant resources. Preparing and starting now will help to spread out the resource and productivity impact before the deadline finally arrives.
On Call Medical will help you implement and manage your transition plan so you can continue to focus on your core business funtions. We will craft customized, comprehensive and cost-effective processes to make your transition to ICD-10 a success.
