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Is ICD-10 Going to Cause Some Level of Insanity?

“Is ICD-10 Going to Provoke a Level of Healthcare Insanity?” is an article by Melissa Clark that gives some insight into her opinions as to how ICD-10 is going to possibly affect the healthcare industry…

Excerpt:

“The ICD 10 is going to result in super bills that contain diagnostic codes that are so in-depth the bills are going to be beyond the point of usefulness in the detail provided. In addition, it’s going to be more time consuming to complete the process. Here is a good example. A child receives a bite. The medical professional will code the injury according to the newest breakdown, but when the claim now contains a bite, they will now have to specify what kind of bite, such as dog, cat or alligator (yes that’s correct, alligator). There is no reason for this amount of detail on a claim. except that it simply creates a very detailed way of tracking patient’s medical records.

Those implementing the new ICD-10 codes will face financial challenges.

The cost of implementing ICD-10 will depend on a number of factors, so for some it will cost less than others, but overall this is going to be a very expensive undertaking by all medical facilities. In addition, once it is implemented it may affect the speed at which revenue flows into the practice, because reimbursements could be affected by DRG shifts, accounts receivables could be delayed, and additional staff may be needed to implement and run the new coding system. At the very least, the current staff is going to require training. There may also be a decrease in productivity seen.

There is a number of constituencies who will have to be informed and brought on board.

ICD-10 requires some entities to be involved in the gathering and processing of such in-depth information that might ot have been so involved in the past, and that can be more difficult. It entails more coordination between health care providers, payers, consultants and vendors along with project teams and it can affect many different levels of staffing…”

Authored by: Melissa Clark on the OMG, LLC Corporate Blog