Day one of life under ICD-10 ended with little fanfare. As Chuck Buck at ICD-10 Monitor said, so far so good.
“Early reports from the first full day of ICD-10 indicate that some of the nation’s practice management system (PMS) vendors are giving a thumbs up to implementation of the new coding set,” Buck wrote late yesterday, “although, of course, they’re still waiting for the ultimate verdict: adjudication of claims.”
Sean Cavanaugh, Deputy Administrator and Director of the Center for Medicare, said basically the same thing in a blog post yesterday.
“You may wonder when we’ll know how the transition is going,” Cavanaugh wrote. “It will take a couple of weeks before we have the full picture of ICD-10 implementation because very few health care providers file claims on the same day a medical service is given …. Even after submission, Medicare claims take several days to be processed, and Medicare – by law – must wait two weeks before issuing payment. Medicaid claims can take up to 30 days to be submitted and processed by states. Because of these timeframes, we expect to know more about the transition to ICD-10 after completion of a full billing cycle.”
CIPROMS has created an ICD-10 “War Room” team to monitor clients’ activity during the ICD-10 implementation and transition. On a daily basis, the team will track claims processing, claims edits, payments, deposits, denials, and rejections for all clients. As well, they will address client questions related to ICD-10, will monitor coding productivity and ensure promised turn-around deadlines, will stay up-to-date with denials and rejections, will research and address any payer issues, and will educate employees and clients about payer-specific guidelines.
The team also will be analyzing comparative reports by payer, comparing performance and payments between ICD-9 claims and ICD-10 claims. As well, the team and CIPROMS coders will offer clinical documentation feedback and suggestions based on payer information and claims performance.
Clients with questions about ICD-10 should contact their assigned account executive as usual. All other inquiries about ICD-10 or other revenue cycle management issues should be routed to cipromsmarketing@ciproms.com.
— All rights reserved. For use or reprint in your blog, website, or publication, please contact us at cipromsmarketing@ciproms.com. Photo by tom_bullock via Flickr used with permission under the Creative Commons License. Photo was recolored as sepia, cropped, and words added.
