All covered entities (health plans, health care clearinghouses, and certain health care providers) should start their preparations with the following steps:

1. Inventory current information systems to determine which ones will be impacted by the change.
2. Communicate with existing information systems vendors to determine their upgrade plans.
3. Evaluate current business partners (clearinghouses, etc.) to determine their plans to meet the deadline.

Additionally, all covered entities need to make preparations for coder training. HHS estimates total training costs for full-time hospital coders at $2,750 per coder ($2,200 for lost work time, plus $550 for training expenses), and $550 for part-time coders ($440 for lost work time, plus $110 for training expenses). Besides in-service training at health care facilities, the AHIMA Education Strategy Committee is developing a transition and implementation strategy to pull ICD-10 coding, reimbursement and change-management knowledge clusters into associate and baccalaureate model curriculums. Master’s level programs will be updated as well to reflect changes in managerial and organizational skills.

To help with coder training, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ICD-10 Web site offers an ICD-10-PCS to ICD-9-CM mapping that can be downloaded from: http://www.cms.hhs.gov/ICD10/02_ICD-10-PCS.asp

Implementing the ICD-10 coding system will require preparation and prompt action.
Read the full Ingenix Innovations article here.

Prepare for a successful transition to the new ICD-10 coding system with the latest ICD-10 data, coding and training products from Ingenix.