The grace period for ICD-10 ends Oct. 1, 2016, which could spell trouble for ASCs that haven't been keeping up with the change.
According to an ASCA report and AHIMA report, the grace period's ending means:
1. Diagnostic coding must now be to the correct level of specificity.
2. The incorrectly coded claims won't be processed.
3. Incorrectly coded claims could be audited.
4. There will be new ICD-10 codes, potentially 2,000 new codes after a three year partial code freeze.
5. Statistical reporting could become difficult as unspecified 2016 ICD-10 codes will be compared with more specific ICD-10 codes in 2017.