On Friday, the new ICD-10 deadline became final. CMS made the announcement that October 1, 2015 is the new compliance date for health care providers to transition to ICD-10.

We understand that providers might be feeling a little burned by the delay and likely apathetic to the idea of reviving transition efforts. We’re here to energize those efforts.

To start, it’s important to remind ourselves of the benefits of ICD-10:

• Improved coordination of patient care across providers and over time
• Improved quality measurement and reporting
• Prevention of fraud, waste, and abuse
• Greater accuracy of reimbursement for medical services
• Improved data capture and analytics
• More detailed data to enhance health care delivery

If you want more information about the benefits of ICD-10, or need a reference to illustrate these improvements to your colleagues, download our Benefits of ICD-10 report.

Secondly, while ICD-10 will provide several improvements, it will also impact a number of areas in your organization.

Areas impacted include:

• IT systems changes
• Staff education and training
• Business process and documentation changes
• Changes in super-bills charges
• Increased documentation costs
• Cash flow disruptions
• Reporting changes

Details of these impacts can be found in our ICD-10 Impacts presentation.

Use this presentation to educate and prepare your staff for the impacts of the new coding system.

Lastly, with the push-back of the deadline, a bit of re-strategizing is in order.

In a recently published webinar, ICD-10 expert, Thomas Grove discusses eleven areas to consider when assessing your ICD-10 transition plan.

The webinar is a great way to jump-start your transition efforts towards the 2015 deadline.

If you’re seeking guidance on your ICD-10 efforts, let us know. We specialize in ICD-10 assessments, project management, and implementation and would be happy to discuss solutions to the challenges you’re experiencing in the move to the new code set.