What’s one new symptom that has stricken doctors all across the country?
If you said anxiety, you’d be correct. But it’s not just anxiety over the everyday challenges of being a practicing physician. It specifically has to do with one new change in the industry: ICD-10 coding.
Starting on October 1, physicians and providers in America have begun using the ICD-10 coding system. This means there are all-new medical codes to describe anything from a tonsillectomy to diabetics who also suffer from hypertension. More than 100,000 new codes have been introduced, and on top of that, there will be significant, sweeping changes to the codes already used.
It is an entirely new system, one mandated by law – and doctors have run out of time to learn how to deal with it.
Fear and Loathing in ICD-10 Coding
The ICD-10 coding change has been known for months now. But that doesn’t mean it still doesn’t inspire fear in doctors – fear that claims will go unpaid and payments will be delayed due to inevitable errors in coding.
In light of this growing anxiety, some healthcare providers have even taken the somewhat-drastic step of taking out lines of credit in order to deal with anticipated cash-flow problems. And while any problems that emerge will likely be corrected, resulting in delays that are only temporary, it’s still a real enough problem as to inspire a certain degree of panic in many providers.
Plus, there’s the fact that coding for diagnoses will have to be much more precise. There’s a code for just about anything you could think of. Diabetes, for example, has over 200 codes.
It’s not just coding, though; it’s in the actual delivery of treatment. Because of ICD-10, physicians will have to perform even more tests to further delineate symptoms and underlying conditions. A person who comes in for high blood pressure, for example, may also have congestive heart failure. ICD-10, in a way, has spurred physicians to be more thorough in their testing and diagnosing.
Dealing with ICD-10 Coding Anxiety
Coding, as any physician knows, is a vital part of any practice. After all, a practice depends on steady cash flow from payments and claim approvals, and anything that can disrupt that will understandably cause a bit of angst for doctors and hospitals.
Moving forward, in order to cope, practices can either rush to train their physicians and coders in ICD-10 practices – some hospital systems have already spent millions on this – or can take a shortcut and relieve anxiety by hiring ICD-10 coding specialists who are already well-versed in coding procedures.
Perhaps some practices are already trained and prepared. But most of them, judging by responses from all over the country, are not. That only leaves one option: hiring coding professionals who are ready to go.
If you want to relieve anxiety and to better ensure on-time payments and claims, take steps now. Hire an ICD-10 coding specialty agency like Medical Business Management to get caught up with ICD-10 transitioning.
