Provider Poll: ICD Preparation
Are You Prepared for ICD-10?
Not many in the home medical equipment industry might realize how long in the making ICD-10 actually is. The World Health Organization originally started the project in 1983, working to expand the system’s codes from the 17,000 codes comprised by ICD-9 to a massive 155,000 codes encompassed by ICD-10. That work was finished in 1990, and many nations around the world began implementing the system in 1994.
However, one nation took its time: The United States. It wasn’t until 2008 that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services told its suppliers that it was transitioning to ICD-10, and that if they wanted to continue billing Medicare, they would need to comply by 2012. After some panicked requests for a delay, the ICD-10 can got kicked to Oct. 1, 2015.
As much time as the industry has had to prepare, the results of an HME-Business.com online poll indicate that providers might not be where they’d like to when it comes to ICD-10 implementation. More than a fifth of respondents didn’t even know what the system was, and more than half had not yet started working to comply. With fewer than 10 percent of respondents in compliance and ready for Oct. 1, there is clearly much work to be done.
This article originally appeared in the February 2015 issue of HME Business.