Health Information Management

Study: ICD-10 transition to cause financial, information loss

HIM-HIPAA Insider, September 15, 2014

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A team of researchers may have uncovered what many involved in the transition to ICD-10 have feared all along: Disruption of data and financials is on the horizon.

Although the October 1, 2014 implementation of ICD-10 is no longer a reality, the data gathered by researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) prior to the delay remains accurate. For some time, the industry has been abuzz with news that the transition to ICD-10 may lead to loss of information and decreased revenue. UIC researchers decided to dig a bit deeper into this theory to determine, by specialty, which ICD-10-CM codes would cause the greatest disruption to billing, staffing, inventory selection, practice management, and clinical revenue.
 
The first study was a general approach to determining the impact ICD-10 will have on data and reimbursement to determine which codes would present the greatest challenge during the transition, according to Andrew D. Boyd, MD, assistant professor in biomedical and health information sciences at UIC. Researchers found that the impact of ICD-10 would vary by specialty, and hematology-oncology would have the easiest transition, whereas obstetrics, psychiatry, and emergency medicine would be the most challenging.
 
In a second study based on data from the first, researchers decided to dig deeper. The researchers mapped and evaluated ICD-9-CM and ICD-10-CM hematology-oncology code data from the Illinois Department of Medicaid and the University of Illinois Cancer Center (UICC). What they found was surprising. Although the original study led researchers to conclude that hematology-oncology was the least affected medical specialty, the follow-up study revealed information loss affecting 5% of billing costs, which could significantly impact an organization.
 
Continue reading "Study: ICD-10 transition to cause financial, information loss" on the HCPro website. Subscribers to Medical Records Briefing have free access to this article in the September issue.



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