ICD-10 & Coding

Don't worry, it looks like the ICD-10-CM code set is up to the task.

The new company will be able to offer health plans and providers a comprehensive suite of end-to-end financial and payment solutions and technologies, according to a McKesson statement.

Workforce management and staffing company AMN Healthcare has acquired Peak Health Solutions, a health information management services company that provides remote medical coding and consulting to hospitals and physician medical groups.

Florida Hospital has seen significant improvements in its case mix index, resulting in a $72.5 million increase in appropriate reimbursement since the implementation of a clinical documentation improvement program.

At least this far in, the fears of massive claims rejections, crashing cash flows and full-blown chaos were largely unfounded.

Of the 3,651 new codes, 97 percent will update the cardiovascular and lower joint body systems. There will also be new codes for a face transplant, hand transplant and donor organ perfusion, CMS said.

Two months after the implementation of ICD-10, revenue cycle experts say their world didn't collapse but not enough time has elapsed to declare the smooth rollout a victory.

While CMS said it was "pleased to report that claims are processing normally," it's worth keeping in mind that the government agency has taken several temporary steps to smooth the transition to ICD-10 which may be masking problems that could manifest themselves down the road.

This year, Healthcare Finance is asking its audience of healthcare finance decision-makers to help us rank the top issues with its inaugural, "Year that was, year that will be" survey.

About 10 percent of claims filed under ICD-10 have been denied since the coding vocabulary became the norm on October 1, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said on Thursday, though only a small number of those denials were due to coding errors.