Pretty regularly, NueMD does a survey of medical practices that produces some great insights into the small practice world. This year they decided to survey medical practices about ICD-10. They’ve posted the ICD-10 survey results for those interested in really diving into the detailed survey results. They had a total of 1000 responses from primarily small and medium-sized medical practices. That sample size always gives me a little more trust in the survey.
As I looked through their ICD-10 survey results, this is the chart that really stood out to me:
The thing that attracted me to this chart first is that it highlights a number of areas where a medical practice might be concerned when it comes to ICD-10 readiness. Are you doing the right ICD-10 training and education? Have you done payer testing? Have you budgeted in any software upgrade costs that may be required to meet ICD-10? How about claims processing? Are you ready? Will you be ready by the ICD-10 deadline? These are all good questions that every organization should be asking themselves as we move towards Oct 1 (ICD-10 implementation date for those following along at home).
The second reason I love this chart is that it shows you where organizations are most concerned. I was not surprised to see that many are really afraid of how claims processing is going to go during the transition to ICD-10. What are you and your organization doing to prepare for this? It’s going to be a really big deal for many organizations and could cause them massive cash flow issues if things go bad.
The second highest was Training and Education. This is an extremely challenging one for small practices in particular. Plus, the timing is hard as well. If you train them too early, they’ll forget it come Oct 1st. If you wait to long to do the ICD-10 training, then you might not have time to train everyone that needs to be ready. I’ve seen most organizations training earlier and then doing short refresher courses or content as they get closer.
I’m planning to do another ICD-10 post soon to talk about predictions on whether ICD-10 will go forward or not. So, watch for that in the future. However, I think organizations that aren’t acting as if it’s going forward are playing a game of Russian roulette. They’re certainly braver than I’d be if I were running a healthcare organization.
John – as always thanks for sharing! Time for hospitals to help their owned, managed and affiliated practices get these jobs done! There are a ton of ICD-10 training tools out there for MD practices. AMA is good place to start. Also, MD practices should focus just on diagnosis/procedures and codes for their specialty. And don’t forget to collaborate with PMS and EHR vendors! Keep the ICD-10 coverage coming – October 1st is right around the corner.