The True Costs of Transitioning to ICD-10
When it comes to streamlining, medicine often gets a bad rap. There’s lots of paperwork, referrals, appointments, and questionnaires to fill out—and that’s often before patients even get to see a doctor. But one place that medicine has long been streamlining is the ICD code.
The ICD code is shorthand that all medical professionals use to refer to common sets of illnesses. As the system is updated from time to time, its numerical name is updated too; ICD recently moved from 9 to 10. The updates are important: Delaying them costs everyone in the healthcare stream money and time.
The newest ICD update has some in the medical profession worried, though. They’re wondering about timely testing and software compliance, which has caused some people to wonder about dual coding. This may cost in both workflow and money. Even so, the conversion to ICD 10 will cost money—hundreds of millions—even as the same industry gains even more than it costs in revenue.
All of this means that evaluating the costs and better preparing for transition are important considerations.
This infographic, by Quill, reviews some of the main issues as well as details steps to take with this updated medical coding issue.
Click to Enlarge Image
