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Ready or Not, Here Comes ICD-10READY OR NOT Here Comes ICD-10

ICD-10 and the Impact on Revenue Cycle

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October 1 2013, was to mark a seismic shift in the healthcare landscape. On this date, the U.S. government was set to retire the more than 30-year-old Interna-tional Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision (ICD-9) diagnosis coding standard

and officially adopt its successor, ICD-10, for ambulatory services and inpatient discharg-es.” While the Department of Health and Human Services recently announced they will be extending this deadline, now is still time to act.

While ICD-9 is a limited structure, ICD-10 is expansive, allowing for previously unseen precision in coding, billing, and reimbursement. For instance, rather than processing a sim-ple diagnosis of “fracture of forearm,” healthcare providers will be able to get as detailed as a “torus fracture of lower end of right radius, subsequent encounter for closed fracture with routine healing” thanks to ICD-10’s alphanumeric language.

Being able to chart, measure, and bill against such intricacies will have long-lasting benefits for the healthcare industry, including better patient follow-up, more accurate claims, insight into population health, analytics about pan–healthcare system diagnoses, and a decrease in fraud.

To get to this coding nirvana, the healthcare industry has to start preparing for ICD-10 now. The cutover will impact critical systems including electronic health re-cords (EHR), billing, encoding, referral management, contract management, and test ordering. Peripheral systems such as decision support, quality management, disease management, clinical trials and protocols, and modeling/trends also must be upgraded to take full advantage of the new coding structure.

According to the mandating agency, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the healthcare industry, including physicians, hospitals, insurance providers, and third- party billers, should already have started down the ICD-10 path. CMS published a timeline recommending that the first phase of ICD-10 deployment—assessment and planning—be completed by the second quarter of 2011 and that organizations should now be well into implementation preparations.

Ready or Not, Here Comes ICD-10

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WHAT IS THE STATUS OF ICD-10 PREPARATION AT YOUR ORGANIZATION?

3%

26%

16%

56%

Weare Partwaythrough Indiscovery/ Wehavenot readynow assessment startedyet

Base=242SOURCE: ICD-10 Puts Revenue at Risk,HealthLeadersMediaIntelligence,July2011


In reality, most organizations either haven’t started ICD-10 planning or are in the early stages. A July 2011 survey on ICD-10 readiness by the HealthLeaders Media Intelligence Unit found that only about half (56%) were in the discovery/assessment phase. Another 16% reported they hadn’t started the ICD-10 migration process. More than a third of respondents hadn’t come up with a projected cost for the labor, hardware, software, training, consultants, etc., that would be required for ICD-10 compliance.

To play catch-up, healthcare companies will have to rely on the expertise of their solutions providers. The latest version of Centricity Business from GE Healthcare is a versatile revenue cycle management solution that is ready to support ICD-10 requirements. The software is designed to help organizations, which continue to face surging costs for ICD-10 and overall healthcare reform, achieve greater profitability and efficiency from the front desk to the billing office. In addition, GE Healthcare has amassed an ICD-10 knowledgebase to assist customers, such as hospital networks, academic medical centers, large practices, and physician billing groups, in adapting to this new environment.

Deadline LoomingA look at the calendar shows that the healthcare community now has less than two years to implement one of the most major reforms in its history. And, as the HealthLeaders Media Intelligence survey respondents indicated, many haven’t even begun preparations.

Though they see the potential, health-care entities face numerous obstacles in getting ICD-10 off the ground, such as lack of physician cooperation, staff training, funding, payer readiness, and vendor readiness. Forty-one percent of respondents to the survey attributed their organization’s lack of ICD-10 readiness to “more pressing priorities.”

“If ICD-10 were the only thing going on, it might not seem so challenging. But healthcare organizations are under a lot of different, simultaneous pressures,” says


ONCE ICD-10 TAKES EFFECT, DO YOU ANTICIPATE THAT YOUR ORGANIZATION WILL LOSE REVENUE AS A RESULT?

54% No 46% Yes

Base=242SOURCE: ICD-10 Puts Revenue at Risk,HealthLeadersMediaIntelligence,July2011


Michael Nolte, vice president and general manager for GE Healthcare IT. Others felt they have plenty of time or that the deadline will be extended.

Organizations mulling over ICD-10 have balked at the cost. A quarter of respondents estimated their project costs to be more than $500,000—a tough pill to swallow in these difficult economic times.

Some fear the effect on revenue even more than the project price tag. Forty-six percent anticipate lost revenue from ICD-10. More than 40% expect to suffer losses between 6% and 20%. Almost half predict those losses will drag on from six months to two years.

Respondents are concerned about a push to ICD-10 leading to incomplete physician documentation, payers not being ready in time, coding staff mistakes, and other issues.

In addition to the financial impact, companies fret over the cultural one. “ICD-10 is like learning a new language—it’s a completely new way of thinking,” suggests Nolte.

The complexity of ICD-10 scales with the size of the healthcare system. “If you’re a single physician practice, ICD-10 is pretty straightforward, but a large healthcare organization will have to do a complete review of their infrastructure,” Nolte says.

To start, organizations need to assess system and vendor readiness, training needs and financial impact, and document any gaps. A majority of survey respondents who indicated they completed their assessments (73%) had carried out a review of their system/vendor readiness. But less than half (48%) had studied the financial impact. Nolte notes that a compli-cating factor of ICD-10 is that it coincides with so many other reforms, such as meaningful use.


WHAT DO YOU FORESEE AS YOUR BIGGEST CHALLENGE OR CONCERN IN MEETING ICD-10 READINESS? 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th Ranked Ranked Ranked Ranked Ranked Ranked choice choice choice choice choice choice

Physiciancooperation 34% 33% 11% 9% 9% 4%

Stafftraining 21% 24% 17% 19% 10% 9%

Funding 18% 9% 17% 12% 22% 21%

Payerreadiness 12% 17% 22% 23% 16% 10%

Vendorreadiness 8% 11% 23% 25% 18% 15%

Meetingthedeadline 7% 6% 10% 12% 24% 40%Base=242

SOURCE: ICD-10 Puts Revenue at Risk,HealthLeadersMediaIntelligence,July2011


ICD-10’s BenefitsWhile organizations might be overwhelmed by the timing, cost, and cultural impact of ICD-10, they have to think longer-term.

Respondents to the HealthLeaders Media Intelligence survey concede that the new coding system will lead to improvements in evidence-based medicine, long-term healthcare quality, reimbursement, and the strength of their organization as a whole.

The ICD-10 project team at one of the country’s leading healthcare systems, Orlando Health in Florida, says ICD-10 will enable the organization to streamline billing and reimburse-ment, track public health, and identify areas for improvement in administrative performance.

Inside Orlando Health: ICD-10 PrepOrlando Health has a jump-start on its peers in terms of ICD-10 preparedness. Here are some tips from this pioneering team:

n Set up a cross-functional team to steer ICD-10 efforts. Select a subset of employees representing all of the impacted areas, such as coding, scheduling, systems, billing, and physician practices.

n Communicate your intent to move to ICD-10 early on. Don’t spring an ICD-10 migration on your users. Instead, let them know as soon as you form your team and allow them to have input. Many are aware of the impending cutover and will start to worry if they don’t see movement toward ICD-10.

n Tune in to the ICD-10 community. Sign up for updates on the standard through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (www.cms.gov) or through industry groups such as the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (www.himss.org).

n Make sure your vendor is ICD-10 ready. Vendor readiness is key. Centricity Business has native ICD-10 support and Orlando Health is working with many of their vendors to ensure system readiness.

n Understand the roles within your organization. Orlando Health found that there were four primary groups that interacted with codes that had to be prepared for ICD-10. Determining which users will be impacted helps focus limited resources.

n Target ICD-10 training based on audience. Understand that physicians might absorb information differently than coders, so adjust your education program accordingly.

n Prioritize systems for compliance. Not everything has to be ready on day one, so figure out which applications are connected to reimbursement and make sure they are compliant with ICD-10.



A comprehensive, private, nonprofit healthcare network, Orlando Health has more than 14,000 employees and 2,000 affiliated physicians supporting the region’s only Level One Trauma Center for adults and pediatrics; specialty hospitals dedicated to children, women, and babies; and a statutory teaching hospital system.

Orlando Health, which considers proper coding critical to its revenue cycle, has bumped up against the limitations of ICD-9. “ICD-9 was initially created for statistical tracking purposes and over the years it’s been used for billing and quality measurement,” says Tiffany Harris, inpatient coding manager and a co-lead on the ICD-10 project team at Orlando Health.

Harris believes ICD-9’s lack of specificity has rendered it obsolete and has made it difficult for organizations like Orlando Health to garner business improvement and insight from coding.

Eager to remedy this, Orlando Health has embraced ICD-10 migration. “In ICD-10, you can provide greater detail for complex procedures and you’re less likely to produce incorrect codes,” Harris says.

The organization created a high-ly visible, cross-functional team that along with Tiffany Harris includes Jackie Weber, manager of revenue management training; Kristy Summers, quality assurance manager and is led by project manager Linda Bjorklund.

Together, they are responsible for the education, training, policies, processes, corporate communication, and systems assessment necessary for a successful ICD-10 rollout.

Weber calls cross-functionality key to an ICD-10 deployment. “ICD-10 is not just a systems-based change; it’s also about processes. We would have serious problems if the project was not aligned with the business,” she says.

The team recently finished its assessment phase, studying coders, physician practices, and other areas to understand the new standard’s impact. The early start has enabled them to begin training users and develop an awareness of the benefits of ICD-10 among all employees. For the past two years, Harris has been introducing users to ICD-10 root words and coding conventions via e-mail and the corporate intranet to get them used to the new terminology. “The way we’ve approached this has cut the anxiety level among users,” she says.


“In addition, Orlando Health credits Centricity Business as key element to their ICD-10 readiness.”


Summers has used the opportunity to identify systems that will be affected from an operations and reporting perspective. “We’ve prioritized the systems that must be compli-ant for us to do business, and we’ve worked closely with vendors, including GE Healthcare, to understand their ICD-10 remediation plans,” she says.

GE Healthcare Eases ICD-10 ComplianceLike the savvy team at Orlando Health, organizations should seek a solution that assists in all areas of ICD-10 migration, including the obstacles of staff training and payer and vendor readiness. They also should be on the lookout for a revenue cycle solution that minimizes costs and features a rapid return on investment.

GE Healthcare is a strong partner to help transition organizations from ICD-9 to ICD-10. The company’s extensive experience with ICD coding standards and intimate knowledge of the ICD-10 landscape will enable organizations to migrate their systems in a cost-effective and user-friendly manner.

The latest version of Centricity Business supports next-generation revenue cycle management based on ICD-10 standards. The software streamlines administrative tasks and accelerates revenue collection from payers to providers.

“Centricity Business is extraordinarily versatile, building on 40 years of proven revenue cycle management experience,” Nolte says. “Customers stay well ahead of emerging health-care reform needs with technology that seamlessly connects clinical and financial information, supports the needs of ICD-10, and delivers top revenue cycle performance.”

Centricity Business meets emerging industry needs with a highly flexible architecture, improves profit margins by lowering accounts receivable days, and enhances patient care by seamlessly connecting with any EHR system.

Highlights of Centricity Business Include:

n Low-touch billing to improve the ability to meet the risks of the growing self-pay population by reducing human touch across the patient access and revenue cycle processes

n Clinical connectivity to drive real-time clinical and financial interoperability through tighter, closed-loop connectivity between Centricity Business and EHR

n Native ICD-10 support two years ahead of the date for regulatory compliancen Use of virtualization to lower total cost of ownership by reducing cost to implement,

support, and maintain Centricity Business



Get Started NowTo minimize the risk of revenue loss, organizations need to get their ICD-10 efforts under way. And to make up for lost time, they should partner with an experienced provider such as GE Healthcare.

Doing so is bound to speed compliance cycles, reduce costs, and shrink lost revenue. “We want to make sure our customers are ready early and that there are no bottlenecks in their systems,” Nolte says. Companies that look beyond the deadline will find revenue-generating uses for ICD-10, he adds.

Failure to comply with ICD-10 will severely impact the revenue cycle. Don’t wait. Start today.

Go to: www.gehealthcare.com/centricitybusiness for more information on ICD-10 readiness

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