“Does it impact patients? It absolutely does,” Dr. King says. “It’s one more step toward losing some of the feel of the patient–physician relationship. When we go live, physicians will have to spend much more time coding with their eyes on the computer instead of spending time observing the patient.”
In Dr. Weinstein’s case, “We haven’t told our patients anything,” she says, “although as it gets closer, we may just ask for a little extra patience.”
Ultimately, the way things look as of mid-May 2015, the switch is coming without further delay, and the changeover has the potential to cause some considerable upheaval for day-to-day medical practice. The only way to mitigate that is to be prepared.
“The message is get ready. Now,” Dr. Harvey says. “Leverage every resource you can afford and start preparing.”
Kimberly J. Retzlaff is a medical journalist based in Denver.
Resources to Help You Gear up for ICD-10
Numerous resources, both online and in person, are available to help physicians and their staff switch to the ICD-10 code set.
- Attend a coding course (specialty or broader)
- The ACR’s online resources
- The ACR Practice Management Department: 404-633-3777; [email protected]
- Road to 10: The Small Physician Practice’s Route to ICD-10. CMS.
- Talking to your vendors about ICD-10: Tips for medical practices. CMS.
- Ullman K. Plan now for the ICD-10 changeover. The Rheumatologist, May 2011.
- Buckholtz R. So you were a procrastinator … now how do you prepare for ICD-10? AACP.
Case Studies of ICD-9 vs. ICD-10 Coding
Coding examples provided by Trina Gee, RHIT, coding supervisor, Northwest Medical Center, Tucson, Ariz. These codes are based on the ICD-10 coding logic that was current as of May 19, 2015, and is subject to change with the final coding changes effective Oct. 1, 2015.
ICD-10 Timeline
2009 ICD-10 announced and go-live slated for October 2013
Aug. 27, 2012 HHS announced a one-year delay of ICD-10 implementation, pushing the date to Oct. 1, 2014
Feb. 19, 2014 The federal government agreed to conduct end-to-end testing on ICD-10 for select providers
March 3–7, 2014 Testing week
Apr. 1, 2014 Go-live delayed to October 2015 via the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 (Pub. L. No. 113-93)
Jan. 26–30, 2015 CMS conducted the first of three rounds of end-to-end testing
April 27–May 1, 2015 CMS conducted the seond of three rounds of end-to-end testing
July 20–24, 2015 CMS scheduled the third of three rounds of end-to-end testing
Oct. 1, 2015 Go-live
