Doctor's Life Magazine, Tampa Bay Doctor's Life Tampa Bay Vol. 2 Issue 1, 2014 | Page 19

you have to make a financial investment as many people and organizations are doing. Make sure to find the best quality resources that are going to thoroughly prepare you and be able to address your questions and concerns as much as possible. There are a number of organizations that suggest up to 26 hours of education for professional coders. I believe the time will range based on a number of things. For instance, how long has the professional coder been coding? This is important because sometimes it is difficult to teach mature people new behaviors. I was a coding professional for over 15 years and I have been working with ICD-10 for about 3-4 years and I still struggle with being able to remove my perfected 15 year habits from ICD-9. I will be the first to admit that the ICD-10 CM system is not hugely different in concept but there are new rules and additional documentation requirements for ICD-10 CM that do require you to alter your ICD-9 thought pattern. For those coders that have the luxury of having to learn the ICD-10 PCS system for the inpatient setting- this is a totally different story. The ICD-10 PCS system is entirely new and different from what coders are familiar with. This system will require time and practice and an investment. Free tools are great- but you have to dedicate the time and ensure that you are getting the best resources available. PREPARING PROVIDERS It is necessary for physicians and other providers to understand the importance of complete classification of diseases and procedures in ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS (depending upon their specialty). The quality of healthcare data will help facilitate and be responsible for setting quality of care and pay for performance initiatives and parameters involved in disease outcome and severity of illness as it relates to resource consumption. Understanding the ramifications of “garbage in = garbage out” as well as how the information is used in healthcare policy development and profiling will help with accepting the need for classification change. Issue 1, 2014 Effective education for providers is critical to the success of a smooth conversion. Some professional organizations are suggesting anywhere from 2 to 11 hours of education for providers. I find that this information is pretty accurate but should be very specific to provider specialties. Keep it simple- focus on areas per specialty. For specialties around family practice, internal medicine, hospitalists, ER and other cross functional areas it may require more time learning some of the new documentation requirements in multiple areas than it does for specific areas like orthopedics or cardiovascular. I recommend some of the following activities to help with education efforts: »» Education and training sessions specific to specialty and topics requiring new documentation »» Procedure template revision/creation to accommodate incorporation of all key documentation elements for specific procedures (e.g., infusions, transfusions, injections, etc.) »» Super bill revisions and other template updates for ICD-10 codes IN SUMMARY I could go on and on about ICD-10 but here is the short and skinny- it makes sense for the most part. Professional coders and billers need help with the appropriate documentation based on what is known about the patient at the time of care. I will admit there are things that I am not clear on why certain changes were made or why some descriptions were updated, however, I do see the value of having better quality codes. Hopefully over the next few years after implementation, CMS will review ICD-10 codes and make decisions for changes based on code assignments that have been utilized and not utilized. In the meantime, don’t take the easy way out and just assign unspecified codes. The data is important and with the move to pay for performance and other quality initiatives, data will be essential. Doctor’s Life Tampa Bay 19