Many allege that ICD9 codes lack the ability to precisely describe low-intensity conditions particularly pertaining to physical therapy, home care etc. On the other hand, ICD 10 is widely believed to be more accurate and inclusive and thus is expected to promote the number of successful claims. But before getting there, chiropractic practitioners have to be fully compliant with ICD 10. Currently this has kept chiropractors worried.
But the good news is the government deadline for transition to ICD 10 from ICD 9 has been postponed to Oct 1st 2014. It’s almost a year from now. But, if you look at the challenges transition involves, it mayn’t look like a long time.
As chiropractic practices are varied in nature, there is no common way in which practices can transition to ICD 10. Depending on the nature of a practice, a chiropractor would have to work out the best way to move to ICD 10 considering the impact of ICD 10 on it, the time they would require for transition, and the cost. And all these factors will be greatly shaped by the challenges chiropractors will face during transition. And as transition plans will vary from practice to practice, different practices will face different challenges. But all chiropractors will face some challenges in common.
These challenges can be addressed in the following ways:
It’s not surprising that the last few months have seen an increase in the number of chiropractors approaching professional billers and coders to help them sort out their ICD 10 transition concerns. However, you would require billing and coding organizations that can combine traditional knowledge with keen awareness of ICD 10 dynamics and be able to figure out how they will impact your line of chiropractic practice.
MBC’s Revenue Management Consulting services can help you with this by assessing your in-house revenue management cycle and ensuring that there is sound coordination between various components of healthcare facilitating smooth flow of medical data. This will help you develop a comprehensive documentation which is among the key requirements for successful transition. We will also help you identify the ICD 10 counterparts of ICD 9 codes you are using now.
Medicalbillerandcoders.com, the largest consortium of billers and coders in the US, has also been helping several small to medium size chiropractic practitioners with its Outsourcing services and will also help them prepare for ICD 10 transition even as they spend their time solely focusing on chiropractics.
