With the advent of electronic billing and coding practices, modern healthcare has benefited tremendously over the past decade. Physicians no longer have to stay on a lookout for coding changes to keep their practices away from mis-coding and claim denials. Coding manuals have become redundant with electronic billing software well equipped to integrate coding changes into billing procedures on a continual basis. However despite all this, a coding transformation as big as ICD 10, commands inevitable and undivided attention of medical and dental billing experts all over.
ICD 10 code changes which are due to be initiated in October 2014 will introduce 85000 procedural and 57000 new diagnosis codes. This will most definitely impact dental billing practices greatly.
Increased risk of claim denial
Effective from October 1st 2014, claims filed with ICD 9 codes will be duly rejected or denied by the insurance carriers. Until and unless the service rendered is coded with ICD 10 codes for claim appeal or resubmission, dental practitioners will face a lot of difficulty in achieving required reimbursement levels. This can hit the over all financial stability of many dental clinics at the outset and can even increase the audit risk in long term.
Change in coding formats and categories
Diagnosis and procedural codes are undergoing transformation with ICD 10 coding guidelines. With the total no. of codes increasing from 14000 to 155000, the entire coding format is becoming more detailed and specific. CPT and HCPCS codes will remain constant but dental billing practitioners file maximum claims for diagnosis and singular procedures. Even changes like those in code digits and coding terminologies for dental services will make coding and administrative billing a complicated task for dental billing practitioners.
Cross coding
Dental cross coding has evolved as a process for achieving maximum reimbursement and claim payment in the past few years. Over a period of time, dental billing and coding practitioners have managed to integrate ICD 9 coding into their billing processes. With ICD 10 codes completely changing the coding patterns, dental practitioners will be facing new set of challenges in identifying the right code structure of procedures that can be more profitably coded under medical coding and billing.
Optional sub-coding
ICD 10 is also introducing 14000 new optional sub codes that will enhance the medical reporting and make the coding practices more specific and flexible. With processes like temporo-mandibular joint disorders being coded under separate sub-coding options, dental billing practitioners will find their practices exposed to a huge range of codes to select from for specific services rendered to patients.
Medicalbillersandcoders.com is a billing and coding expert that understands the crucial nature of this coding change being experienced by dental practitioners. Our teams of dental billing experts and dentists bring forth years of experience in cross coding, sub coding, CPT, ICD and HCPCS coding as well as HIPAA compliance. When you outsource your dental billing process to medicalbillerandcoders.com, you not only ensure error free transition to ICD 10 for your dental practice, but you also create more time for patient care.
