Amidst cries to Congress to put the brakes on, the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) is making it loud and clear that the healthcare community needs to keep preparing for the transition to the ICD-10 classification system.
“If healthcare providers stop their ICD-10 planning and implementation now and wait to see if Congress will take action, they will not be ready in time for the compliance date,” says Dan Rode, AHIMA vice president for advocacy and policy.
Currently, physician practices, healthcare delivery systems and payers use the 35-year-old ICD-9-CM classification system, but it has not been able to keep up with medical knowledge and new disease factors, limiting health data that can be used to improve patient care.
“The move to ICD-10-CM/PCS is at the foundation of healthcare information changes underway in the United States,” Rode says. Stopping implementation would result in a significant financial loss to the healthcare providers, health plans, clearinghouses, technology vendors and the federal government, all who have invested in the transition and have been preparing for the last several years.
The ICD-10-CM code set – the portion that must be used by all healthcare providers – was created by taking the international classification system ICD-10 and modifying it to meet the information needs of U.S. doctors. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have been modifying the code set for more than a decade with input from stakeholders in the healthcare community, including physicians. According to AHIMA, physicians are not required to use ICD-10-PCS, which reflects the procedures and treatment provided by the practitioner. Instead, physicians will continue to use the American Medical Association’s CPT classification system, lessening the changes doctors must make.
“The concern that physicians must use all the codes in the ICD-10-CM system is inaccurate,” says Rode. “Like we use dictionaries to find specific words, practitioners use those codes that best fit their practice.”
Rode also says AHIMA coders have shown that a “super bill,” a form that many practices still use, can be assembled in less than a day for most small practices, making the transition easy for those who do not want to invest in other automated options.
Find out more on the AHIMA ICD-10 website: ahima.org/ICD10.
