As the Oct. 1, 2013, deadline for ICD-10 implementation bears down, HIMSS11 attendees were assured Tuesday that there's no need to panic.
At a discussion titled "Conversion Countdown: Jumpstart Your ICD-10 Project, Minimize Disruptions," Mark Williams, RN, a partner, in the Health Industries segment of PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Sydney V. Ross-Davis, MD, ANSI 5010/ICD-10 healthcare management project lead at the Health Care Service Corporation, coached payers, providers and vendors on how best to benchmark progress on the road to implementation.
While "startup was a little bit slow in the industry" when the code set requirements were announced, Williams said he's noticed "a huge wave of providers" getting their conversion processes under way.
It's a daunting challenge, with the new set representing a sevenfold increase in codes from ICD-9. Nonetheless, while the gravity of the project may still be setting in for some organizations, "the sky is not falling," Williams said. "It's big, but we do think its manageable."
The key, he said, is to "set reasonable goals" on the path to 2013 and really think through what will be required at every step of the way.
"There are a number of organizations working on development and design, planning for testing," said Williams. And the day is not too far off when many organizations will be "going outside their four walls" to begin talking and coordinating with other parties.
[See also: Orlando Health delves into ICD-10 work]
"How close are you to being ready to engage in those kinds of discussions?" he asked.
Ross-Davis joked about how she got the formidable task of becoming CD-10 project lead: "I got assigned to the role when I was out of the office."
Still, she said, even though some people "want to kill me when I say it," when she first heard about the job, "I thought it was neat."
"And I still think it's neat," she said. "It's an opportunity to do a lot of things that need to be done in healthcare on the payer side and the provider side ... to fine-tune business rules to leverage data to get better results."
Before that can happen, there's much work to be done - and likely a lot of adjustments and fine-tuning after that - for ICD-10's promise to truly take shape.
"October 1, 2013, is not the end," said Williams. "It's really the beginning."