The transformation to ICD-10 was easier than several had hoped

When the expensive and exhausting transformation to the ICD-10 coding system occurred in the month of October, few experts within the healthcare industry hoped large-scale disruption and cataclysmic hits to contributors’ cash flow.

But dire predictions about negative impacts of the move did not come to pass and now, 8 months later, one of the leading agencies tracking the transformation says its most recent survey indicates minimal impacts.

Coding accuracy is hovering nearly 65% now, and the average productivity decrease was just 14%, much lower than hoped, in accordance to a research by the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) and the AHIMA Foundation.

“Health Information Management (HIM) experts are already coding with the similar degree of precision as (they were) in the ICD-9,” AHIMA CEO Lynne Thomas Gordon claims in comments on the outcomes. “With any change, there’ll be an initial time of productivity decline, but we completely expect this decline will be short term in nature. In fact, respondents showed in the survey that they’ve become more comfortable with the latest code set with per day, and productivity decreases sustain to lessen.”

Several survey respondents pointed out that the implementation of latest computer-assisted coding (CAC) technology appeared at the similar time as the introduction of the ICD-10 code set, which might account for few portion of the productivity decline. Health information management experts who worked in inpatient environments had less of a productivity decline instead of those who worked in outpatient environments, survey data indicated.

AHIMA and the AHIMA Foundation plan to take another survey in the month of May 2017 to evaluate trends in productivity and accuracy.

The U.S. was believed to be one of the last established countries to turn to the ICD-10 code set, which sustain many more codes than ICD-9 and enables medical records and bills to consist of much more detail. The switchover had been postponed or delayed at least twice, but previous year, federal organizations were clear that the latest code set would be needed for bills submitted to Medicare.

“The greater specificity in ICD-10 will offer for a more precise and complete patient story and a more meaningful way to detect the results of care,” Thomas Gordon stated.