ICD-10 & Coding
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.
Revenue cycle firm RelayHealth said it has processed more than $25 billion in claims using ICD-10 codes, though it's still not known how that will translate when it comes to payment by the insurers.
While the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced a year's grace period this summer when it comes to claims coded with ICD-10, not all large commercial payers are following suit.
While the practice has been optional so far, in early 2017 providers must submit four of their inpatient quality reporting measures electronically, dubbed eCQM, or they will receive a 25 percent reduction in their Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services market basket update in 2018.
While certain technology jobs have gotten much of the glory this year - data analysts, security professionals and mobile application developers, to name a few - ICD-10 coders have also been in high demand and most have been scooped up.
Healthcare Finance spend the bulk of Thursday's rollout monitoring the buzz, speaking with experts and reporting on any issues that may have arrived, and while the true effects of the change will be felt in the coming weeks when claims are processed, bills delivered and accounts receivable wane, we have a few observations of the day that we'd like to share below.
On Thursday, providers dealt with system issues, which will be followed by productivity issues and then payment issues, according to healthcare insiders.
The American Medical Association was strangely quiet Thursday on the switch to ICD-10, but at least one physician was not, saying the new diagnostic coding system represents another administrative burden that is strangling independent doctor practices.
Some hospitals have established a command center for triage, a major consultancy is taking the "virtual command center" approach, and a cloud-based EHR vendor is deploying foot soldiers to practices in several states on both U.S. coasts.