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Even as the World Health Organization pushed back the implementation of the ICD-9 to ICD-10 conversion in October 2014, it doesn’t give vendors, insurers and stakeholders the license to procrastinate. Although it does seem like unnecessary effort on the part of the hospitals, clinics and medical practitioners considering the number of codes they have to input—or about 100,000 new codes—the whole deadline is anchored on the idea of improving the quality of healthcare, lessening the impact in case of a pandemic, for example, and ultimately reducing the cost of healthcare. No Excuse for Complacency Some organizations might look at the delay in deadline as an excuse to be complacent. In fact, it’s an opportunity for them to enhance their system if they already implemented the initial phases of requirements to meet the October 2014 deadline. If not, they should already be starting to form a committee to serve as the implementing body for the ICD-10 conversion. They should also seriously consider employing third-party service provider that can implement the migration as well as conduct the ICD-10 assessment to ensure that they meet all the requirements of the law. Elbow Room Another year of breathing space might either be sufficient or not enough depending on where you stand. But no matter how you look at it, another 12 months will give you enough elbow room to tweak your system to be ICD-10 compliant. Another 12 months will give you a lot of option in your path toward ICD-10 conversion by allowing you to focus on revenue cycle operations, boosting your current system on clinical documentation and diagnosis, training your staff upgrade their skills in the implementation of the new codes, computing the entire cost of the migration and where can you source out the money, then testing and retesting your system to minimize glitches. Things to Consider The organization should draw up an implementation design for the ICD-9 to ICD-10 conversion. This blueprint will serve as a guide that will cover clinical documentation, patient release schemes, a change in management, staff training and risk mitigation practices. Second, the organizations should also consider whether hiring outside help to implement the new changes or assess its own adoption of the new codes. There’s nothing like providing an objective viewpoint on the current progress of the company regarding its own ICD-10 conversion. Lastly, the organizations and private medical physicians should adopt a testing mechanism to check whether or not the new codes are at par with the industry standards. Their systems should be working smoothly and without interruptions, and their staff should be able to make adjustments on every possible scenario. The organizations should also coordinate with the vendors and insurers to make sure they speak the same language in the implementation of the ICD-9 to ICD-10 conversion.
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ICD-9 to ICD-10 conversion, ICD-10 assessment,
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