Sunday, February 16, 2014

Ensuring Compliance With ICD-10-PCS Before Deadline

By Violet Solomon


The ICD-10 stands for international Classification of Diseases and other Related Health Problems, tenth revision. It is used to code diseases and signs, the related symptoms, all the abnormal findings and complaints, the social circumstances and the external causes of injury and diseases. The coding list is published and updated by World Health Organization (WHO) and is used in many other countries other than US. The ICD-10-PCS in particular means the International Classification of Disease 10 Procedure Coding System and consists of both numeric and alphabetical codes ranging from three to seven in total.

The first digit in the code is used to indicate the medical practice section which can be surgery, monitoring, measuring, administration or any other section. The next digits specify the body system, root operation, the body part, the approach used and devices used in that order. The last character (seventh) is used as a qualifying digit. The first three characters are usually so crucial and are stored in the ICD manual to help in reference.

The ICD-10 came as a replacement of the ICD-9 and is set to take effect on October 1, 2014 bringing with it a dramatic change in medical and healthcare sector in general. All the players from federal government, state governments, medical professionals and the insurance firms are set to be affected by this new coding system.

The ICD-10 captures the clinical modification component known as ICD-10-CM for clinical modification and ICD-10-PCS for the Procedure Coding System. The implementation of PCS is set to bring about up to 87,000 new codes to replace the previously used 8,660 CPT codes.

Even with the transition, a number of players are not converting to ICD-10 codes. In this group are the auto insurance companies, the legal claims and workers comp which prompts hospitals to use a mixture of ICD-9, ICD-10, ICD-10-PCS and CPT codes for the management and billing system. The hospital management system must therefore have ability and knowledge required for automatic conversion of ICD-9 codes to 10 and back, Convert CPT code to ICD-10 or nine and back. This should be done with ease, efficiency and comfort for smooth operations and transition.

As a healthcare provider in US, it is important to be fully compliant with the new coding system long before the October 1, 2014; the date of transition comes. This helps avoid the challenges associated with late attempts to comply such confusion and delays that are likely to be witnessed as there will be a rush from hospitals, surgery centers, clinics, CMS, insurance firms and State Medicaid and other players.

As a healthcare provider, there are no other viable options other than ensuring compliance long before the October I, 2014 date set for new system enrollment. The other options are to outsource the services or retire from the industry all together which does not seem reasonable.

The implementation of ICD-10-PCS is however clouded with rumors and concerns that if confirmed to be true, could prove to be a big game changer in the industry. One of the recurring rumors is the possibility that the coding system will eliminate the so called unspecific codes that have long been used to support payable diagnosis. If confirmed, the CMS claims for code nine and zero may not get paid by insurance companies.




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