UnitedHealthcare, Aetna, BlueCross BlueShield and Humana, four of the country's largest private payers, will be ready for the ICD-10 transition come Oct. 1, according to a survey conducted by the American Academy of Family Physicians.
AAFP asked the payers about their ICD-10 preparations, any challenges they were facing and how they were working with providers to get ready for the transition.
The payers shared various approaches for ensuring they are prepared for the switch — Aetna began large-scale internal testing in 2013 and plans to continue throughout 2014, Humana has developed a payer/provider collaborative testing program that will launch in the spring, and UnitedHealthcare and all of BCBS's 37 independently operated plans will all participate in downstream testing this year.
"Payers want this transition to run smoothly, too," said Laura Schmidt, an AAFP private sector advocacy strategist who conducted the survey, in a news release. "They've invested a lot of time and money into the ICD-10 implementation… The bottom line is that no business, big or small, involved in this effort can afford a slowdown in its billing and payment processes."
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