During the last AHIMA, I sat down with Dr. Jon Elion, Founder and CEO of ChartWise Medical Systems and asked him about how a physician can improve their EHR documentation so that it matches the needs of medical coders better. In the following video, he offers a couple simple tips on how a physician can do this easily.
Considering ICD-10 is just around the corner, I thought many would find these tips interesting and useful.
John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit.
In our recent article about AMA’s call to Halt ICD-10, we got a really interesting practice perspective on ICD-10 that I thought I’d share. The comments come from Sue Ann Jantz who works at a medical practice. Sue brings up some really interesting points that I think are on the minds of many practices and doctors. The final one about 3rd party payer systems is an important one.
In your recent article -
The American Medical Association’s most recent call to halt implementation of ICD-10 codes brings to light an interesting angle to the coding story – one that I hadn’t recognized until I read up on just why the AMA has consistently made it known that the switch is a bad idea.
My two cent’s worth:
See, all of the coding changes are going to fall on the physicians — they won’t be able to pawn it off on anyone else, like a nurse or a coder/biller or an administrator. Remember, they do MEDICINE, not transcription, billing, personnel or business.
This is especially true of docs in large organizations such as hospitals and multispecialty clinics (MSC), who believe they have to do all the extra preventative care things because the government tells them to — not realizing that the incentive payment has some administrator licking their chops. As far as most Admins are concerned, getting the docs to do extra work doesn’t cost the hospital or MSC anything, so, why not?
Add to that the perfect storm that’s brewing: HITECH act —> electronic records and meaningful use (MU), ACA —> ACOs and reconfiguration of alliances, and then ICD-10 —-> total rearrangment of charting/documenting (plus the unknown).
And you are surprised there’s smoke coming out of the AMA’s ears? Personally, I am concerned there will be meltdown in the medical community. As far as most of them are concerned, this is all Obama’s fault, and they are furious and busy telling everyone who comes in that Obama is the devil. Granted, those that blame Obama are the one I’ve heard — so that’s probably a limited group in Kansas.
At a coding seminar recently, the presenter asked how many were going to get out before ICD-10 kicked in. Most of the room of 50 people raised their hands – about 80 percent. Further, they said their physicians were going to retire before that happened as well. ICD-10 is slated to go into effect Oct. 1, 2014. Everyone is supposed to be signed up for health insurance by Dec. 31, 2014, bringing anywhere from 15 million to 30 million people into the health care system looking for a provider.
Do you think this might be a problem?
That said, individually, all three of these things are long overdue. Had each been done when they needed to happen, we wouldn’t be in this fix now. Plus, ICD-10 will go into effect and a few months later, ICD-11 will be implemented everywhere else in the world — some think we should skip to ICD-11 … but we probably have enough on our plates at the moment.
Politically, Sebelius has to get this done before the end of Obama’s term. I hope it doesn’t crash us. I am working on it all as if it’s all going to happen. We are not part of an ACO, we probably won’t get to MU1 even though we are working on it because there isn’t enough money in it, although we did do the Adopt/Implement/Upgrade part of the HITECH act. So, that only leaves ICD-10. and I am working on our templates, those instruments of the devil by Sebelius’ standards. Without templates, we wouldn’t have a prayer.
And none of this addresses the 3rd party payer systems … which will probably crash if the early tests are indicative. That means we will not get paid. So I am stockpiling money for that time now.
John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit.
The American Medical Association’s most recent call to halt implementation of ICD-10 codes brings to light an interesting angle to the coding story – one that I hadn’t recognized until I read up on just why the AMA has consistently made it known that the switch is a bad idea.
The association believes transitioning to the new, 68,000 codes will place too much of a financial and administrative burden on physicians (especially small practices), and will ultimately force many of them to shut their doors.
Attending education sessions at AHIMA last fall left me with the impression that though learning the new codes and suffering through dual coding wouldn’t be fun, they would ultimately help physicians and hospitals receive proper reimbursement for their services. Yes, there were vendor cheerleaders on many panels, but the logic made sense even to a novice like me.
I realize that physician practices are quite a different kind of beast when it comes to handling administrative tasks, and I can certainly understand how a small practice would feel completely overwhelmed when, as the AMA stated in a letter to CMS, overlapping federal regulations combined with predicted Medicare pay cuts will make switching to ICD-10 a huge difficulty for them.
But I feel as if there’s a catch 22 here. If physicians don’t make the switch, they won’t see the potential financial benefits of more accurate coding. If they do make the switch, they’ll likely face such huge financial strains that they’ll opt to go out of business. Are there any physician readers out there who are cheerleading the ICD-10 switch?
It occurred to me, reading recently about the predicted banner year for physicians seeking hospital employment, that physicians that do decide to close their doors as a result of ICD-10 may contribute to this glut of MDs looking for work.
Perhaps there’s a domino effect waiting to happen – CMS stands firm on the ICD-10 deadline / Physicians work incredibly hard to try and make it happen. / Physicians fail and go out of business, or decide early on that it’s just not worth the trouble and close up shop. / Said physicians seek hospital employment. / There aren’t enough hospital jobs to go around and many MDs are left in the unemployment line.
That’s just one scenario I’ve been mulling over, and of course doesn’t take into consideration the large amount of other challenges facing physicians right now. What’s your take on the ICD-10 and physician staffing situation?
As Social Marketing Director at Billian, Jennifer Dennard is responsible for the continuing development and implementation of the company’s social media strategies for its three key properties – Billian’s HealthDATA, Porter Research and HITR.com. She is a regular contributor to a number of healthcare blogs, and currently manages the Technology Association of Georgia Health Society’s social media channels. You can find her on Twitter @SmyrnaGirl.
I’ve asked many people why we haven’t had more stories on the benefits of ICD-10 since so many other countries have been using ICD-10 for many years.
In the following video I asked Doris Gemmell, BSc, MBA, CHIM, Director of Coding Services at Accentus Inc. about the benefits of ICD-10 to population health and she provided an answer from her ICD-10 experience in Canada.
You should also check out this video where Doris Gemmell talks about the patient benefits of ICD-10. Plus, Doris also has a blog.
John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit.
