ICD-10 & Coding

Text of a bill by Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, to delay the switch to ICD-10 diagnostic coding surfaced on Monday, in which it requests further study on the disruption on healthcare providers could face resulting from the replacement of ICD-9.

Legislative tracking site govtrack.us gives the bill, submitted by Texas Rep. Ted Poe, a 1 percent chance of ever being enacted.

Rep. Ted Poe, R-TX, introduced H.R. 2126, a bill seeking to prohibit the Secretary of Health and Human Services from replacing ICD-9 with ICD-10 diagnostic coding vocabulary.

Any provider who submits claims electronically can participate in acknowledgement testing.

Qualitest survey found 28 percent of organizations said they have done any revenue impact testing with payers.

Proposal also means 19 hospitals now listed as rural would be converted to urban, losing their 14.9 percent payment adjustment.

The integration will give providers additional expertise as they navigate ICD-10, meaningful use, population health management, privacy and security, revenue and cost management and analytics.

Front-end collections are increasingly important, as inpatient volumes have dropped since the recession, losing ground to outpatient procedures.

Speakers tackled topics such as increasing patient communication, finding solutions to improve patient collections and prepping for the big ICD-10 change on Oct. 1.

For outpatients who receive care on both Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, the challenge will billing under both ICD-9 and ICD-10 diagnostic coding vocabularies.