Health Information Management

WEDI survey offers insight on ICD-10 readiness

HIM-HIPAA Insider, September 29, 2014

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by Jaclyn Fitzgerald, Editor
 
The Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI) recently released the results of its 2014 ICD-10 Industry Readiness Survey, which revealed that most industry segments have made progress in preparing for ICD-10 implementation since October 2013.
 
With a little more than a year to go before the new ICD-10 compliance date of October 1, 2015, the survey revealed that vendors and health plans are continuing to make progress toward implementation while many providers lag behind. This year’s survey included responses from 324 providers, 87 vendors, and 103 health plans.
 
In a letter to HHS, WEDI reported that the delay in ICD-10 implementation caused two-thirds of provider respondents to slow down or stop their implementation efforts. The survey also revealed that some vendors and health plans pushed their testing efforts out into 2015. WEDI recommended that the healthcare industry continue with its implementation efforts to avoid being unprepared for the 2015 implementation date.
 
Key findings from the survey include:
  • Approximately two-fifths of vendors stated that they completed product development, which is an improvement over the October 2013 survey results
  • Approximately two-thirds of vendors reported that their products are already available, which is nearly twice as many as the previous year. However, one-quarter said their products will not be ready until 2015.
  • Approximately three-quarters of health plans completed their impact assessment compared to two-thirds at the time of the October 2013 survey.
  • More than half of health plans responding to the 2014 survey started external testing compared to one-quarter in 2013. Nearly three-quarters of this year’s health plan respondents started internal testing compared to less than half responding in 2013.
  • Approximately half of providers said they completed their impact assessments, which is nearly the same as in 2013. Large providers were more likely to have completed impact assessments than small providers.
  • Approximately one-third of providers responding to this year’s survey have started testing externally. Last year, about three-fifths said they would begin in mid-2014. However, more than half of this year’s respondents plan to start external testing in 2015.
  • About three-fifths of health plans plan to test with a small selection of providers while about one-fifth will test with the majority of providers.



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