South San Francisco, CA – November 5, 2012 – First Databank (FDB), a leading provider of clinical drug knowledge that improves medication-related decisions and patient outcomes, announced the availability of the Tenth Revision of the International Classification of Diseases code set ICD-10-CM (clinical modification) and ICD-10-PCS (procedure coding system) within FDB MedKnowledge, the company’s proprietary clinical drug knowledge.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that ICD-10 implementation deadline is set for October 1, 2014. The transition to ICD-10 will affect coding for everyone covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), not just those who submit Medicare claims. According to CMS, ICD-10 codes must be used on all HIPAA transactions, including outpatient claims with dates of service, and inpatient claims with dates of discharge on and after October 1, 2014.
In addition to claims processing, clinicians who utilize healthcare information systems that incorporate FDB’s drug knowledge also rely on ICD codes for clinical decision support. They use the codes to record patient problems and when performing drug-disease decision support for drug-disease contraindication screening, screening for drug side effects, drug indications and indication-specific drug dose checking. Since patient profiles will continue to contain ICD-9-CM codes for several years to come and there will be a need to perform retrospective analysis and clinical decision support, FDB will continue to support ICD-9-CM codes.
“We are pleased to provide our customers with the ICD-10-CM/PCS code set well in advance of the government’s deadline,” said Lisa Geller, MBA, senior product manager, FDB. “As our customers prepare for this important industry transition, our ultimate goal in releasing this data as early as possible is to ensure their success.”
