Crying, Teeth Grinding, Anxiety, Pulling Your Hair Out – all is unwarranted! While it is too early to claim a complete victory, coders seem to have overcome the challenges of ICD-10 coding. Continuing education will be key in coders increasing productivity and keeping up with further changes, the first of which is set to hit on October 1, 2016.
While experts agree that productivity is on the rise after the initial implementation of ICD-10, it continues to be an important issue for coders
to address. After all, one has to remember that the changes were vast with the difference being 69,368 diagnosis codes and 87,000 procedure codes under ICD-10, compared with 13,500 diagnosis codes and 4,000 procedure codes under ICD-9. And with those vast differences came some minor glitches. Previously, and since 2011, ICD-9 and ICD-10 have been under a partial code freeze, with only limited code updates to capture new technologies and diseases.
The American Medical Association (AMA) predicted as much as a 25 percent revenue hit for private practices, but according to Scott Griffin, Vice President of Consulting Services for Culbert, that has not been seen. As well, Mike Denison, the Senior Director of Regulatory Compliance programs with Change Healthcare which is a clearinghouse firm that processes ICD-10 claims, stated, “Overall, the rejection rates from both a clearinghouse and payer perspective were very close to baseline.”
Between ICD-10 books, conversion charts, online educational resources such as http://www.precyse.com/precyseuniversity/physician/solution.php and software that converts codes automatically, there are many ways to stay on top of new codes and continue to learn the ones that are used most at a particular practice. It is recommended that practices continue to monitor claims, especially rejections and denials.
With Medisoft, Lytec, Greenway PrimeSuite and other ICD-10 ready EHRS, your ICD-10 cash flow can be protected. Please contact Microwize Technology at 800-955-0321 for information on practice management software. Microwize is ICD-10 Ready !
