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WEDI survey shows hospitals nearly ready for ICD-10

HIM-HIPAA Insider, August 31, 2015

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By Steven Andrews

Despite implementation efforts taking place in fits and starts for years, hospitals are largely prepared for the upcoming ICD-10 transition, according to the latest Workshop for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI) survey.

Approximately 75% of hospitals have started or completed external training, according to the survey. Almost 90% predicted they would be completely ready by October 1. WEDI conducted the survey of 453 physician practices and hospitals, 96 health plans, and 72 vendors in June.

More than 40% of all providers cited staffing and competing priorities as the major obstacles to implementation. Providers identified uncertainty over further delays as their biggest concern in the February 2015 survey. Only 33% of providers cited uncertainty as a concern in the latest survey, down from more than 50% in February.

Another good sign is that more than 80% of hospitals plan to code directly in ICD-10, leaving less than 20% planning to use crosswalks, which are a useful tool, but not meant to replace natively coding.

Physician practices lag significantly behind hospitals in ICD-10 readiness, according to the survey. Less than 50% expect to be ready, with nearly 25% responding they would not be ready and more than 25% unsure.

Hospitals noted vendor readiness as a concern, but vendors responding to the survey claim they will be ready by implementation. According to the survey, 75% already have ICD-10-ready products available, and the rest expect them to be ready by the second or third quarter of 2015. Ninety percent of the vendors said their products were available or they had started customer testing, a big increase from 66% in February.

Need some refresher training for your staff? Catch our summer series of ICD-10 webcasts live and on demand. Need more intensive training? Check out HCPro’s live and online Boot Camps.

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in APCs Insider.

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