When the American Medical Association (AMA) petitioned the government on February 12 to delay the start of ICD-10 many wondered what would happen. What will happen at Texas Children’s is pretty clear – the conversion to ICD-10 will go live October 1.
“Here at Texas Children’s, we started working on this process more than a year ago,” said Myra Davis, senior vice president of Information Services. “We’re making the necessary changes to our systems, as well as implementing an education program for providers and coding staff that will make the transition as smooth as possible.”
On October 1, Texas Children’s and health care organizations nationwide will transition to ICD-10, the coding system used to report and code diagnoses, injuries, impairments and other health problems and their manifestations. It will replace ICD-9, the current coding system used at Texas Children’s.
Everyone has acknowledged that implementing a new coding system won’t be easy. In fact, the AMA estimates that even small physician practices can expect to spend between $57,000 and $226,000 to get ready for the change. But everyone agrees that the result will be better data for providers, patients and researchers.
While the AMA continues to seek a repeal of ICD-10, it nonetheless remains a federal mandate and physicians are urged to prepare for the October 1, 2014 compliance deadline.
On February 27, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said that nothing has changed with the ICD-10 deadline. Marilyn Tavenners spoke to a group of IT professionals at a national conference when she made that announcement.
“There are no more delays, and the system will go live on October 1,” Tavenner said. “We’ve delayed this several times, and it’s time to move on.”
A quick timeline
In 2008, the U.S. government agreed that America should join with other nations in implementing ICD-10. They originally set October 1, 2013, as the deadline, but that was extended to 2014. The new codes will impact the hospital’s electronic medical record (EMR) and affect codes for both diagnoses and procedures. All told, the number of diagnosis codes will increase from 14,000 to 69,000, while the number of procedure codes will grow from 14,000 to 71,000.
The last time the U.S. changed its national coding system was in 1979. That’s when hospitals and providers moved from ICD-8 to ICD-9. People who favor the next move to ICD-10 point out that when ICD-9 first was implemented, people still could smoke in hospitals.
“Medicine has evolved so much, it only makes sense to update our systems,” Davis said. “Think of how many new treatments have been developed in the last 25 years. The old code set wasn’t designed to capture those innovations, while the new code set better describes what’s happening in medicine today.”
In the end, Texas Children’s is committed to meeting the October 1 deadline to implement ICD-10, no matter what the chatter is in the industry.
For more information
ICD-10 Fact Sheet
ICD-10 Industry Updates
ICD-10 Myths and Facts