When The Department of Health and Human Services' drew out a time table for ICD-10 transition, all the stakeholders including the providers felt the time-frame was sufficient to migrate comprehensively to ICD-10 compliant clinical and operational practices. But that has not been the case – in view of woefully slow pace of transition across the health care, The Department of Health and Human Services' has acceded to the demand for extending original deadline from Oct. 1, 2013 to Oct. 1, 2014. And, with no possibility of further extension, majority of providers are not risking going all by themselves. Instead, they are seeking out specialists for the purpose – nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of them are understood to have employed third-party specialist to look after the entire process of transition to new coding system.
The providers’ decision may have been prompted by inherent challenges in transforming to as gigantic and as complex a transition as ICD-10. The ICD-10 code structure is distinctly unique and more elaborative than its predecessor, ICD-9. Because the previous coding system was inadequate to cover the evolving diagnosis and disease management procedures, ICD-10 was conceived with as many as 69,000 diagnosis codes and 72,000 procedural codes. While such extensive coding may eventually eradicate ambiguity, the accuracy of coding demands proficiency in anatomy, pathophysiology, Medical Terminology, and ICD-10 coding conventions. Because of such complex, time consuming, and costly upgrading, providers may not ventured on their own. Amongst many crucial areas where ICD-10 specialists may be required to intervene are:
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Despite ICD-10 transition being complex, time consuming, and costly, it could eventually result in:
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While fully endorsing providers’ decision to seek third-party specialists’ intervention in ICD-10 transition, Medicalbillersandcoders.com is confident and competent of engaging providers with specialists that are resourceful enough to plan, test, and implement ICD-10 compliant clinical documentation, coding and billing practices. Our affiliation with ICD-10 specialists across the 50 states in the U.S. makes us the leading source of ICD-10 change-agents for medical practices of diverse sizes and disciplines.