ICD-10 News: 2013 Transition Activities

News Updates | January 10, 2013

Planning Your ICD-10 Transition Activities for 2013 The year 2013 brings two crucial ICD-10 transition milestones for providers: April 1, 2013: Testing ICD-10 with colleagues/staff within your practice October 1, 2013: Testing ICD-10 with business trading partners like payers, clearinghouses, and billing services Review your ICD-10 timeline and make sure you are on track to meet these milestones. Jump-starting Your Transition To prepare for testing, be sure you have completed the following activities: Review ICD-10 resources from CMS, trade associations, payers, and vendors Inform your staff/colleagues of upcoming changes Create an ICD-10 project management team Identify how ICD-10 will affect your practice Develop and complete an ICD-10 project plan for your organization Identify each task, including deadline and who is responsible Develop plan for communicating with staff and business partners about ICD-10 Estimate and secure budget (potential costs include updates to practice management  systems, new coding guides and superbills, staff training) Ask your payers and vendors—software/systems, clearinghouses,  billing services—about ICD-10  readiness; review contracts/proposals Ask about systems changes, a timeline, costs, and testing plans Ask when they will start testing, how long they will need, and how you and other clients will be involved Select/retain vendor(s) Review changes in clinical documentation requirements and educate staff  by reviewing frequently used ICD-9 codes and new ICD-10 codes Depending on your organization, some tasks above may be performed on a compressed timeline or performed at the same time as other tasks. Testing April 1, 2013: Start testing ICD-10 codes and systems with your practice's coding, billing, and clinical staff  Use ICD-10 codes for diagnoses your practice sees most often Test data and reports for accuracy October 1, 2013: Begin testing transactions from start to finish using ICD-10 codes with payers and other business partners Expect to continue testing transactions and fine-tuning your transition up until the ICD-10 compliance date of October 1, 2014. Keep Up to Date on ICD-10 Visit the CMS ICD-10 website for the latest news and resources to help you prepare. For practical transition tips: Read recent ICD-10 email update messages Access the ICD-10 continuing medical education modules developed by CMS in partnership with Medscape