No Shortage of Excitement (This Week) in Healthcare IT

When I began contemplating the subject of this blog earlier in the week, I thought I’d make room for thoughts on recent improvements in EMR adoption in the small practice and physician community, and the general state of optimism and enthusiasm some op-ed pieces would have us believe is finally taking hold of the industry. But then came along the potential delay of ICD-10, which also begs a quick comment or two.

A bill that included an effort to delay the ICD-10 compliance date a full year was passed, but only after partisan drama over the fact that legislators received the proposed bill just a day before the vote on it was to take place. I tend to turn to AHIMA on ICD-10 matters, and its official stance is fairly obvious:

ahimaicd10tweet

Its reasoning is similar to that of the Coalition for ICD-10, which in a letter to the CMS, stated: “ … any further delay or deviation from the October 1, 2014, compliance date would be disruptive and costly for health care delivery innovation, payment reform, public health, and health care spending. By allowing for greater coding accuracy and specificity, ICD-10 is key to collecting the information needed to implement health care delivery innovations such as patient-centered medical homes and value-based purchasing.

“Moreover, any further delays in adoption of ICD-10 in the U.S. will make it difficult to track new and emerging public health threats. The transition to ICD-10 is time sensitive because of the urgent need to keep up with tracking, identifying, and analyzing new medical services and treatments available to patients. Continued reliance on the increasingly outdated and insufficient ICD-9 coding system is not an option when considering the risk to public health.”

AHIMA has even started a campaign to encourage its constituents to email their senators to urge them to also vote no when it comes to delaying ICD-10. At the time of this writing, the Senate vote is not yet scheduled. I don’t feel the need to restate my support of no further delay. You can read it here.

With regard to the other hot news items of the week, I was intrigued by the findings of the SK&A survey, which found that the EMR adoption rate for single physician practices grew 11.4%. One reason SK&A gave in the survey analysis was due to the “availability of more than 450 different solutions to fit their practice needs, size and budget.” Call me crazy, but I’m willing to bet that many solutions will not exist in the next three to five years thanks to market consolidation. What will these physicians do when their EMR vendor closes up shop? Time will tell, I suppose.

About the author

Jennifer Dennard

As Social Marketing Director at Billian, Jennifer Dennard is responsible for the continuing development and implementation of the company's social media strategies for Billian's HealthDATA and Porter Research. She is a regular contributor to a number of healthcare blogs and currently manages social marketing channels for the Health IT Leadership Summit and Technology Association of Georgia’s Health Society. You can find her on Twitter @JennDennard.

   

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