Although ICD-10 is set to begin Oct. 1, 2014, hospitals, providers, health plans and other healthcare players are far behind in their ICD-10 implementation, and more progress is needed soon to ensure a smooth transition, according to a report from the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange.
The WEDI assessed the healthcare industry's ICD-10 readiness and sent a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. WEDI Chairman Jim Daley wrote that based on its recent readiness survey — which polled 778 providers, 109 health plans and 87 vendors on their ICD-10 progress — the healthcare industry is "well behind" on ICD-10 compliance guidelines. He largely attributed the slow progress to the change in compliance dates, competing internal priorities and other regulatory mandates.
Some of the main findings from WEDI's survey included:
• More than 40 percent of provider respondents said they did not know when they would complete their impact assessment, business changes and begin external testing of ICD-10.
• Roughly 10 percent of providers expect to start external testing this year.
• Providers also listed staffing, budget and vendor readiness as obstacles to ICD-10 planning.
• A little more than 25 percent of providers said they would produce ICD-10 codes by choosing the code directly, but more than half said they would use both crosswalking (i.e., mapping a code in one code set to a code in another code set) and direct coding in their ICD-10 implementation plans.
The WEDI assessed the healthcare industry's ICD-10 readiness and sent a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. WEDI Chairman Jim Daley wrote that based on its recent readiness survey — which polled 778 providers, 109 health plans and 87 vendors on their ICD-10 progress — the healthcare industry is "well behind" on ICD-10 compliance guidelines. He largely attributed the slow progress to the change in compliance dates, competing internal priorities and other regulatory mandates.
Some of the main findings from WEDI's survey included:
• More than 40 percent of provider respondents said they did not know when they would complete their impact assessment, business changes and begin external testing of ICD-10.
• Roughly 10 percent of providers expect to start external testing this year.
• Providers also listed staffing, budget and vendor readiness as obstacles to ICD-10 planning.
• A little more than 25 percent of providers said they would produce ICD-10 codes by choosing the code directly, but more than half said they would use both crosswalking (i.e., mapping a code in one code set to a code in another code set) and direct coding in their ICD-10 implementation plans.
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