ICD-10 Effects on Specialties

The health care professionals have to memorize their most commonly used codes of ICD-09 which will require becoming familiar with the varied code set

ICD-10 Effects on Specialties

As the October, 2014, the deadline for ICD-10 transition is coming; members of the health care industry from all around the corner are busily testing and preparing for the coming roll-out. This means that the system must be updated to accommodate the transferring of new code.

There are about five times ICD-10 codes compared with the ICD-9. The format of codes is considerably different, with similar diagnoses having completely different codes. In number one, all specialties do not receive equal weight; some specialties have a disproportionate number of new rules and codes. Anyways, the switch will be an effort for practitioners of any specialty.

The super bill template was published by the American Academy of Family Practice.  To get more codes, the mappings from one code set to another could be more complex with non-reciprocal or incomplete mappings.

Unequal Impact

According to the new published research in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA), the switch is expected to impact a number of specialties more than others.

The research, which was conducted by a team at the University of Chicago, recommended that mappings between ICD-9 and 10-CM were more complex for some specialties. Particularly, the researchers found that oncology and hematology were placed for the easiest transition, whereas psychiatry, emergency medicine and obstetrics were facing the most challenges during the switch.

The researchers found that the ICD-9 and 10 codes have non-reciprocal and complex mapping. The researchers recognized about five mapping idea categories which indicate the way ICD-9 codes translate to ICD-10 codes. These categories include:

·        class-to-subclass,

·        subclass-to-class,

·        identity,

·        no mapping

·        Complicated.

Transition Impact Negatively on Specialties

The transition from ICD-9 to 10 is possible to influence some specialties more unfavorably than others. According to new research, the transition to ICD-10-CM is more challenging. According to the American Medical Association (AMA).The ICD-10-CM increases the number of access codes from 14,567 to about 68,000, carrying with it implementation costs from $83,000 to $2.7 million per practice.

After mapping codes, the research team came to the conclusion that the changeover will have a biased impact.

Medical Specialties Affect More

Even though the switch to ICD-10 will affect almost everyone in healthcare, there’s an agreement between experts that general practitioners will have an easier time than the specialists.

The billing experts expect that orthopedists will have the most difficult transitions, monitored by cardiologists, ophthalmologists and neurologists. The team of researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago determined that oncologists and hematologists would like to have the easiest transition, and those obstetricians, emergency medicine physicians and psychiatrists’ will face the challenges.

The difficulty of the body system and the way ICD-9 codes were made versus those in ICD-10, both contribute to the difficulty of the transition.

Practitioners must have specialty-specific education about essential documentation for ICD-10 to not impact negatively on coder productivity.

Practical hospitals are planning to offer this education to their medical staff through a phased methodology using learning management expertise and systems content delivered. This will greatly ease the risks of transition and will clearly reduce the level to modify, positively affect physician satisfaction and improve coder productivity and bottom-line of an organization.