The experts suggest that practices stay in close contact with their vendors, clearinghouses, and payers and make sure they are testing their programs. They should also demand the ability to run tests of how their specific systems work with those used by the others as early as is practical.
All the experts interviewed for this article agreed that activating Version 5010 on January 1 should give some indication of what to expect in October 2013.
“With all the changes going on in medicine today, practice management is more and more like squeezing a balloon,” says Brazeale. “You squeeze one end and the other pops out. Get one part controlled and a new concern comes up.”
Keeping an eye on the balls currently in the air is important. Don’t just focus on the one with the nearest deadline.
“Some practices have put ICD-10 on the back burner while they work through EMR or e-prescribing,” says Chung. “Like many other things in the medical world, you will need to be doing many things simultaneously.”
Kurt Ullman is a freelance journalist based in Indiana.
