ICD-10 transition is coming

It is summer again and although many of us breathed a sigh of relief last year when the IC-D10 implementation was postponed until October, 2014—it is still coming.



It has now been more than year since the announcement to postpone ICD-10 and it still feels like last month as time has flown by. If you are like many providers, everything was placed on the back burner for a little while. This is just a friendly reminder that if you have not moved it back up to the top of your priority list—now might be a good time as 2013 will be gone before you know it.

The conversion to ICD-10 is a sizable undertaking. The change will drive business and systems changes throughout the healthcare industry and now is not the time to be comfortable or put it off. Presently, we have 16 months to put a plan in motion. To ensure a smooth transition, organizations will need to devote staff time and financial resources to conversion activities.

There are many great resources available via the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) and other healthcare consultants. Below are a couple of links to tools that are available for providers to download and utilize in assessing and prioritizing your “To Do” list:

http://library.ahima.org/xpedio/groups/public/documents/ahima/bok1_046262.pdf

http://www.hcim.com/2011/03/free-icd-10-implementation-tools/