Employers were warned in 2014 that the ACA came with a new medical billing and coding system. As of October 1st, the United States implemented the tenth revision to the ICD (International Classification for Diseases) codes in an effort to more thoroughly define diseases and injuries.
This change will allow key industry stakeholders to better track and manage diseases and patterns, measure the quality of care, evaluate patient outcomes, ensure patient safety, manage population health, detect fraud / abuse and track detailed data on injuries and accidents to compare global pandemics—all of which support the shift toward value-based healthcare.
However, the coding system comes with other changes that are not so exciting. Doctors and other medical professionals will now have to learn the 140,000 new codes which have been added to describe treatments provided on billing statements as well as private insurance claims. This is a huge leap from the 17,000 codes that previously existed before October 1.
This complex conversion could lead to disruptions across the medical field. Providers may see overall delays in claims processing, and some individuals may have insurance claims that are denied for services that were provided, but not properly coded.
The Health Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) published an article earlier in the year stating coding errors can reach a staggering 19.7% out of total claims submitted. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published a counter article in July 2015, indicating the ICD-10 testing results displayed a 98% success rate and they would not expect ICD-10 to impact patients unfavorably. Another hurdle facing a clinic or a provider is that medical billing and coding is a highly demanded profession and this transition of codes would make it more competitive and thus more costly than before.
If you or your employees are experiencing escalated claims issues, please reach out to your account manager at Fall River - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
