Policy makers have implemented a six-month grace period in which providers will not be penalized for ICD-10 coding errors. However, the dual processing coding period may hurt providers rather than benefit them, according to HealthITAnalytics.
Here are five things to know:
1. Combining ICD-9 and ICD-10 codes will damage CMS quality, demonstration and risk adjustment programs.
2. The delay will be costly for payment reform, public health, healthcare delivery innovation and healthcare spending. A one-year delay is estimated to cost the healthcare industry approximately $6.8 billion dollars.
3. Dual coding will result in technical problems as well as lead to issues for data integrity, clinical analytics and quality reporting.
4. Additionally, the combination of the codes would confuse customer service staff as well as make it harder for fraud detection programs to identify abnormal billing patterns.
5. All EDI and processing systems would need to be reprogrammed, which is not a cheap endeavor. Reprogramming would result in more delays as it takes a substantial amount of time to change systems.
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