Someone in your medical practice needs to take charge of the ICD-10 transition. Someone who is organized and willing to learn everything they can about ICD-10 coding. Why can't that someone be you?
Of course that means you will have to learn more about the ICD-10 code sets and dedicate your time to the transition. But all this work will be an investment that reaps rewards:
- Knowledge your medical practice will need.
- Development of leadership and communication skills.
- Satisfaction of helping coworkers through a difficult transition
Where to get help
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has an extensive list of resources that explain how to prepare for ICD-10 implementation. You can download:
- Checklists
- Timelines
- Fact sheets
- Tutorials
The World Health Organization (WHO) has a free ICD-10 Training Tool. Be careful, it's the base ICD-10 code set not the ICD-10-CM/PCS versions that U.S. healthcare organizations will be using.
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) ICD-10 Playbook has a great deal of content to help plan the ICD-10 transition.
Who can help
Reach out to your local professional societies. They should be planning educational and training programs.
You also need to talk to your healthcare vendors. A large part of the conversation will be about your software, equipment and systems. But they also may have insights on how best to proceed with the ICD-10 transition. Remember, they're interacting with a lot of healthcare providers. They could help you avoid mistakes someone already made.
The same goes with health plans. Reach out to healthcare payers to find out how they can help and set up ICD-10 testing. Again, they might be able to save you some time, effort and/or money.
Follow the code
Find out where diagnose codes originate in your practice. Plug in an ICD-10 code and see what happens. When processes break down or halt, that's what you need to upgrade or replace.
Also, start with a patient. See if your medical records have enough information to create ICD-10 codes. This may be your biggest change.
Share the knowledge
You can't be the only person who knows about ICD-10 codes. Develop an ICD-10 training plan for the entire medical practice:
- Assess what there is to learn
- Identify which staff members will need what training
- Pick best training options
- Schedule training
- Budget resources
Speaking of a budget...
You're going to need to get a handle on how much the ICD-10 transition will cost. It will focus on four areas:
- Coding
- Revenue cycle
- Project management
- IT
Note there will be direct and indirect costs. The direct costs will be almost easy because there will price tags attached. But indirect costs would encompass elements such as lost productivity due to an increase in training sessions.
There's a lot for an ICD-10 champion to do. But it's a necessary job. Someone will end up doing it. If it's you, you can make sure it's done right.