As it is, practices are struggling to meet the October 1 ICD-10 compliance deadline. Assigning ICD-10 codes before then will cost real money. For example, if you want to design a billing system, it would have to include both ICD-9 and ICD-10 codes simultaneously. This could prove expensive depending on the healthcare vendor contracts. Given the dual coding capabilities is a part of the deal, it is extra work nonetheless. This would invariable result in loss of productivity and practices will need to assign extra coding resources. It is safe to assume that medical coding productivity drops by 50% for medical coders who are not proficient with ICD-10 claims. This claim is no way unrealistic. This means that the time the coders take to assign ICD-10 codes to four medical claims, they miss out on processing 8 medical …show more content…
This would result in more queries for clinicians which adds up to the time medical coders and clinicians will be unable to prepare ICD-9 claims. Ironically, this comes at a time when practices are being encouraged to make their business practices increasingly efficient and save cash to get through periods of delayed reimbursements after October 1. However, there is a solution of hiring more coders as employees or freelancers to cover the deficit. But this comes at the cost of more planning and budgeting for staffing. Hence, medical practices are advised to do a cost-benefit analysis to determine if hiring more personnel will indeed prove helpful, or it is better to accept longer reimbursement cycles. Now think about the accuracy. It is not possible for coders to know if the assigned ICD-10 codes are proper, given their inexperience with the new code set. Also, there is little room for feedback since October 1 is right around the corner. However, external ICD-10 testing can help gather valuable feedback. But, there may be issues regarding its arrangements with healthcare