{"id":3848,"date":"2014-02-25T11:04:49","date_gmt":"2014-02-25T11:04:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.medicalbillersandcoders.com\/blog\/?p=3848"},"modified":"2025-05-19T13:30:32","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T13:30:32","slug":"understanding-the-icd-10-impact-on-dental-billing-practices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.medicalbillersandcoders.com\/blog\/understanding-the-icd-10-impact-on-dental-billing-practices\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding the ICD-10 Impact on Dental Billing Practices"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DentalIf you are a dental practitioner, with the ICD 10 implementation deadline nearing, you are worried not just about successfully transitioning to ICD 10 CM. But also whether you fully understand ICD 10, for example, do you understand its coding intricacies, is your dental practice geared to be on ICD without any operational or financial adversities, is your practice technologically ready to handle ICD 10 and so on<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The need to understand ICD 10 and its applications intricately is more important than it was to understand ICD 9. ICD 10 is more specific in nature than its predecessor accounting for finer ailments and sub-ailments which either used to be covered by fewer codes, each code covering multiple sub-conditions, or altogether miss being covered.<\/p>\n

In the context of dentistry, by netting these finer dental areas in its coding network through greater classifications, ICD 10 CM (with approximately 69,000 codes) presents you the opportunity to claim the areas of dental billing<\/a> which previously used to go unclaimed or result in rejected claims falling out of a less coherent net of ICD 9 CM with 13,600 codes, amounting to sizable chunks of unpaid dental services.<\/p>\n

However, this intricate nature also requires a nuanced understanding for billing and coding success.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The procedural and diagnostic codes contained in ICD 10 CM are available under two categories, Diseases of the Digestive System and Factors influencing health status and contact with health services. This means you not only have to figure out which codes will apply to the services you provide but also establish documentarily that they belong to the ICD 10 categories and subcategories you are coding them under. These areas are key to billing and coding<\/a> and although these may be just two areas \u2013 coding and supporting documentation \u2013 they have a wide impact cutting across operations of your dental practice.<\/p>\n

To address these areas related to dental billing, you have to: <\/strong><\/p>\n