If you are a physician billing company providing physicians billing services to hospitals & medical practices, you have to take extra care to implement ICD-10. As a provider of physicians billing services, you will be responsible for complete ICD-10 transition and you cannot depend majorly on your clients.
Don’ts
- Don’t procrastinate or don’t do it in haste: Have an implementation plan and work accordingly. The implementation goes live on Oct 01, 2013. So, don’t do it fast and mess up or don’t procrastinate on ICD-10 implementation, waiting for others to start or the deadline to change. Start now – The more you delay, the more you are at risk of working at the last minute. Let things happen on its own pace, as planned, so that you have time to sort out any issues arising of the implementation, well in advance.
- Don’t leave everything to coders alone: The complexity of the ICD coding system demands lot of groundwork from the coding team. Since the coders have to manage with ICD implementation as well as current work, don’t make them solely responsible for the implementation. The ICD 10 transition should be a combined work involving the transition management team, IT team and the medical insurance billing team as well.
Dos:
- Give proper training to the coding team: ICD-10 requires comprehensive training sessions for coders. Apart from educating the coders about ICD-10 codes, add real life – case based exercises and medical terminologies to the training module that will induce logical thinking in coders and help them act independently when they start coding for ICD-10. ICD-10 also requires basic insight on ‘Anatomy and Pathophysiology’ modules. So include these as short courses in the ICD-10 training sessions.
- Choose the right technology: Many healthcare IT companies have launched tools to aid with ICD-10 implementation. You need to be cautious in choosing the right system to suit your requirements. CMS provides latest updates on these tools in its website.
- Be in loop with latest ICD-10 updates: Though the implementation of ICD-10 is dated to OCT 01, 2013, many healthcare entities have started preparing for the implementation. Updates with ICD-10 are being made by medicare frequently and you need to be well informed about the latest changes happening in the industry to keep pace with the ICD implementation. Make it a practice to look for medical insurance billing & ICD-10 updates in CMS website
- Update your clients: Update your clients regularly regarding ICD-10 implementation initiatives taken by you. Explain them your plan and in fact any hurdles that you face so that they will know your commitment to ICD-10 implementation.