With a fleet of changes in ICD-10 and updates, 2018 can be a troublesome year for orthopedic practitioners. If your ICD-10 orthopedic coding is not up to the mark, you are likely to suffer on the reimbursement front. Most of the changes in CPT 2018 have been made to the Musculoskeletal System codes (20005-29999) and Nervous System Spine and Spinal Cord codes from 2017. The changes to code include non-pressure ulcers, spinal stenosis, phalangeal fractures of thumbs and toes and recommending exercise. To maintain a frivolous accuracy in coding practices at your orthopedic clinic; you need to make your coding specialists well-versed at CPT code sets along with reviewing NCCI’s guidelines adjustments.
Here are some tips you could use on ‘How to Do Accurate Coding for Your Orthopedics Practice in 2018?’
Advanced EHR Systems Are A Necessity In Orthopedic Coding
Sometimes, EHR systems at orthopedic practices require a user to search through the codes themselves. Manually searching for ICD-10 codes to use is definitely not an efficient way to handle orthopedic coding. To be more accurate, it is best to settle for an EHR system that generates orthopedic billing codes effortlessly, almost intuitively. Thus, the practices must opt for an EMR system with proven success in ICD-10 coding as it is time-saving and helps improve the overall performance of the revenue cycle management. Make sure that your EHR supports built-in ICD-10 coding for accuracy. Orthopedic EHR software which uses ICD-9 to ICD-10 translators can often end up in payment denials.
It’s Important To Learn The ICD-10 Language
Practices had been using ICD-9 for years together and were accustomed to making use of shorter codes.
Medical coders grew habitual of them and ended up memorizing them. Learning the freshly introduced ICD-10 codes will take serious efforts. Given that these new alphanumeric ICD-10 codes are more complicated than the previous ones; learning them is an uphill task. You can also settle for an orthopedic EMR system that understands the ICD-10 language by using structured data and helps you achieve desired progress.
Avoid Orthopedics Templates
Very often EMRs come fitted with certain coding templates. As good an orthopedics template may sound on paper, templates may not be beneficial when it comes to efficient workflow. Due to inflexibility, excessive time and effort required to customize a template they are considered inefficient. Furthermore, a lack of clinical thinking is a con. Instead of featuring an orthopedics template, the EHR system of your practice needs to have built-in medical knowledge. It must support an adaptive learning engine and must have a touch-based approach.
Review Your Careless Orthopedic Coding Practices
A revenue cycle management (RCM) review helps you configure the areas that need improvement and changes that you need to make. Incorrect coding can be disastrous for practice in terms of revenue, follow up work, and additional cost incurred in making amends. Proper assessment of coding practices through regular audits help one identify the areas where most errors occur and why. Next step is to invest in suitable orthopedic coding resources that help your team in improving their craft. Train your staff in coding practices which need improvement. This can help you direction an improvement in your revenue cycle.
