ICD-10-CM/PCS Coding Readiness Assessment and Education RoadmapWe know that the challenges of ICD-10 are causing a great deal of anxiety for hospital executives. What do you need to do to prepare? What training does your staff require? How much time do you need before October 2013 to successfully address all aspects of this ICD code set conversion? The overriding answer is — you need to start now! IRM is ready to support you with the full spectrum of assessing, training, and educating your physicians and coding professionals to ensure they are ready for October 2013! IRM’s ICD-10-CM/PCS Coding Readiness Assessment and Education Roadmap can bring all the skills and education required for a healthcare team to successfully transition to the next generation of code sets, while at the same time reducing audit exposure and payment denials. This suite of products combines recognized industry experts with the IRM founding philosophy of teaching first, supporting gains with consistent process improvement, and using applied metrics to measure and record results. In order to be adequately prepared for this major transition in code sets, facilities must phase-in a comprehensive coding readiness program — providing for the assessment and reinforcement of coders’ knowledge of the clinical foundations of medicine, identification of key physician documentation improvement issues, intensive training in the ICD-10-CM/PCS coding classification systems, and the corresponding coding guidelines and conventions. ICD-10 features a greatly expanded capacity to capture more specificity in clinical information. Coders will need to become familiar with clinical classification concepts (e.g., Gustilo and Anderson classification of open fractures, Neer classification of proximal humerus fractures, Glascow Coma Scale, etc.) not currently accounted for in ICD-9-CM. In order to achieve this, coders will be required to reinforce their knowledge of the clinical foundations of medicine. Both ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS will offer an unprecedented level of granularity compared to ICD-9-CM. While ICD-9-CM contains 13,000 diagnosis codes, ICD-10-CM features approximately 68,000. For procedure coding, the level of added detail is even more pronounced. ICD-10-PCS offers approximately 87,000 total procedure code combinations as compared to only 3,000 procedure codes in Volume 3 of ICD-9-CM. However, one crucial fact will not change: regardless of the coding classification system used, coders can only report the level of detail that is reflected in the physician documentation. Just as coders will need to shore up their knowledge of clinical foundations, physicians will need to increase the specificity of their clinical documentation in order for coders to take advantage of ICD-10’s superior granularity. We believe our ICD-10-CM/PCS Coding Readiness Assessment and Education Roadmap provides you with everything your hospital team needs to face this significant code set conversion with confidence. The time is now — call us to schedule your assessment today! Please contact IRM at info@irminconline.com for more information. |
