The conventional wisdom is that we need to wait a few weeks to tell if the ICD-10 transition is successful. It seems that physicians aren’t willing to wait. There has been a significant amount of complaints published in the first week of ICD-10 implementation.
The beginning of the new coding system was a rather normal one with not too many glitches. Despite the frustrations caused by the switch to ICD-10, the actual impact will be seen when it is time for reimbursements. No matter the preparations that went into getting themselves ready for ICD-10, physicians have yet reported immense stress owing to working with the new coding system.
The common issue with the physicians has been that ICD-10 has added tremendous amount of time due to the increased specificity. For many this seems like a waste of time especially with the wait time having increased to hours together. A lot of frustration arises from the officials at the insurance companies who are not aware of a lot of ICD-10 related questions. Technical glitches and unpreparedness on the part of insurers was a big turn off and added to the existing mounting stress for the physicians.
The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) has stressed that ICD-10 will provide more specific data than ICD-9 and better reflect current medical practices. CMS, a division of Health and Human Services, indicated that the added detail embedded within ICD-10 codes will inform health care providers and health plans of patient incidence and history, which improves the effectiveness of case management and care coordination functions. The ICD-10 transition is one example of the many challenges facing medical practices today. Others challenges expressed by physicians include:
- Decreasing reimbursement and increasing costs.
- Anticipated shortage of physicians as older practitioners retire or physicians leave the profession.
- Intrusiveness by payers on physician-patient relationship .