Need another reason to start ICD-10 training? Here are many:

The closer the Oct. 1, 2013 deadline gets, the more difficult it will be to find workers with ICD-10 expertise. Experts will already have been put to good use. The more ICD-10 training and expertise you have, the more in demand you’ll become. And, if you can put the new code set into daily practice, you’ll be a hot commodity in the health care industry.

ICD-10 will create new jobs for health care IT professionals who can implement the mandated code set and for coders who can quickly transition to ICD-10-CM and keep up with the constant volume of claims.

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By Julia Croly

Moving to ICD-10-CM/PCS will require a tremendous effort and incur incredible cost for healthcare organizations. The major hurdles to overcome in implementation of ICD-10-CM/PCS for healthcare payers include cost, timing and complexity. Read more »

When you open the October 2013 Coding Edge, we’ll be using ICD-10-CM.

After more than a decade of false starts and revisions, we are all finally packing for destination ICD-10, which features a new language of an enormous but elegant “smart code” set. For a profession whose members weather weekly reimbursement rules and quarterly code changes, implementation seems both reassuringly far away and uncomfortably close. And frankly, after experiences like the Correct Coding Initiative (CCI) Black Box Edits and various audit programs, it’s hard to get excited about embarking on a boat for yet another federal initiative.

That’s why when AAPC leaders looked at the journey ahead, they searched for “the right approach, the right curriculum, the right timing, and the right cost,” said Deborah Grider, CPC, CPC-I, CPC-H, CPC-P, COBGC, CEMC, CDERC, CCS-P. As AAPC vice president of strategic development and former National Advisory Board (NAB) president, she’ll guide us through the transition. Grider is a long-time Coding Edge ICD-10 contributor and author of such coding standards as AMA Press’ Coding with Modifiers, with a new book, Preparing for ICD-10-CM: Make the Transition Manageable being released by the AMA this month.

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TO: Members of the ICD-9-CM Coordination and Maintenance Committee
FROM: The American Academy of Professional Coders (AAPC)
RE: AAPC’s position regarding suspension of code changes prior to and following implementation of ICD-10-CM and -PCS

The American Academy of Professional Coders does not support the freezing of changes to ICD-9-CM prior to the Oct. 1, 2013 implementation of ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS. Because changes to other coding systems, specifically CPT and HCPCS Level II, will be required regardless of any change in ICD-9-CM code change scheduling, AAPC can see no benefit to freezing ICD-9-CM. And because medical science is continually evolving, AAPC believes any freeze of updates to diagnostic coding affects reporting accuracy and should be limited.

AAPC supports a freeze in changes to ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS. Because all users will be setting up entirely new systems to accommodate ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS in the year(s) prior to implementation, AAPC supports a freeze on changes to the ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS code sets beginning Oct. 1, 2012 (one year prior to implementation) and continuing until Oct. 1, 2014 (one year following implementation). This will provide a 24-month hiatus from any changes to the new system, which will ease the burden of adoption for all participants.

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to the discussion on this very important topic. AAPC will be in attendance to the Coordination and Maintenance Committee meeting September 16 and 17 in Baltimore.

Health and Human Services (HHS) announced last week the final rule for implementation of the ICD-10-CM code set. For more information, go to the link below:

http://news.aapc.com/index.php/2009/01/icd-10-date-of-oct-1-2013-announced/

This month we follow the ICD-10-CM roadmap to crosswalking with general equivalence mappings (GEMs). The GEM system, developed by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), maps ICD-10-CM and the ICD-9-CM volumes one and two and helps facilities and payers create crosswalks. You can access it on the CMS Web site at: www.cms.hhs.gov/ICD10.

Mapping—or crosswalking—helps you find the corresponding diagnosis between two codes sets and their correlation. In ICD-9-CM, codes are three to five digits in length plus alphanumeric E and V codes, approximately 13,500 codes in total. ICD-10-CM consists of three to seven alphanumeric characters with more than 68,000 codes possible. There isn’t a simple crosswalk from ICD-9-CM to ICD-10-CM, and the GEM files attempt to organize the differences. When mapping a code from ICD-9-CM to ICD-10-CM, there may be more than one code in ICD-10-CM that maps to ICD-9-CM. There are separate GEM files for ICD-9-CM Volume 3 to ICD-10-PCS.

Full article:
Follow the ICD-10-CM Road Map with GEM – Coding Edge July 2008

There will be numerous challenges when implementing ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS. According to a study conducted by the Robert E. Nolan Management Consulting Company, the cost to health plans for system implementation may be as high as $1 billion. The estimated cost to Medicare and Medicaid is between $7 million to $1.4 billion. This does not take into account productivity loss, training, contract re-negotiations, etc. The entire health care industry—including facilities and providers— will spend an estimated $14 billion over a two to three year period. Think about the impact the migration

Full article:
The Impact on the Payer and System Readiness – Coding Edge May 2008