Billers and Coders to gear up for 1CD- 10 –despite physician community pushing the deadline

ICD-10’s implementation on October 1, 2013, according to AAPC – will alter everything from the way health care providers document services to the way codes are selected, reported, and reimbursed, however it will be coders who will play a vital role to achieving success in ICD-10 implementation.

AAPC’s vice president of ICD-10 education stated that with the expected advantages of electronic health records (EHRs) aside, all eyes will turn to coders to make sense of ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS, he further cautioned even the best coders in the industry need to increase their understanding of anatomy and pathophysiology (A&P). Further elaborating that specificity of ICD-10 codes is based on a precise identification of body sites and function; hence increasing coders’ knowledge of A&P would be necessary.

Reasoning with the Physician community: Medical Billing Services

With the pressure elevating in the physician community the American Medical Association (AMA) adopted a policy of resisting the implementation of the ICD-10 during its semi-annual policy making session. Implementation of ICD-10 would increase physician burden immensely as practitioners are already clambering to implement electronic heath records, facing high reimbursement cuts while trying their best not to lose focus on their patients. In this scenario it is imperative for physicians to acquire services of proficient billers and coders for revenue maximization.

Challenges for Medical Billing – ICD-10 Transition 

Adoption of ICD-10 will lead to expansion in the number of codes available for both describing diagnoses and procedures from the currently used ICD-9 codes.

Coders to prepare for the transition need to:

• Learn the new coding system, which includes roughly 55,000 unfamiliar codes
• Learn the new code books and styles, which are receiving complete overhauls
• Use both ICD-10 and ICD-9 simultaneously for a period of roughly two years
• Work with your office’s physician to go over the new documentation requirements
• Thorough understanding of medical terminology and human anatomy, due to the increased specificity of ICD-10.

According to Director of coding and classification for the American Hospital Association failure to successfully implement ICD-10 could: Create coding and billing backlogs, cause cash flow delays, increase claims rejections/denials, bring about unintended shifts in payment and place payer contracts and/or market share arrangements at risk because of poor quality rating or high costs.

Gearing up for the change: turning point for Biller and Coders

Hence the importance of the right Billers and Coders in ICD-10 transition couldn’t be more elaborated, and whether or not physicians are able to at this point prepare for ICD-10, Billers and Coders need to gear up and start preparing for the change. Moreover as other healthcare reforms along with ICD-10 necessitates physicians need to prepare themselves to remain afloat, and with various physicians willing to invest into their practices – could be a turning point for Billers and Coders to expand their scope of work and opportunity.

Various physicians are already seeking services of medical billers who are proactive and prepared with material-requisites for ICD-10. Medicialbillersandcoders.com is a viable option for physicians in smooth transition to ICD-10; moreover MBC is equipped with experienced Billers and Coders well-versed with HIPAA, ICD-10 and other compliances, and training themselves constantly as per the industry requirements, along with a long-standing reputation of being the largest consortium of medical billers in the U.S.

Increased usage of Mobile Devices by Physicians while accessing medical records

Smartphones and other mobile devices have made it easier for physicians to perform some of their duties from any remote location and have also pushed many physicians to test the plausibility of these technologies being used in the healthcare industry. CompTIA, an information technology association, survey reported that 56% of physicians are using smartphones, and 25% are using tablets for work. However, there have also been some concerns over the security of patients’ privacy and the information about the health of a patient. Hence advantages of using mobile technology come with its own risks and threats.

Some of the most common wireless threats to physicians include device risk content where the data on the device is susceptible to malicious executable files, unauthorized intrusion risk where unauthorized third parties may gain control and data integrity, confidentiality and authenticity risk where patients data could travel from the mobile device to the access point without being integrated and this can compromise the patients data to third parties. However, these threats can be reduced by protecting patient data when transferred between devices.

Usage of mobile devices by physicians in hospitals as well is advantageous to physicians as mobile access helps in drawing more value out of the big investments hospitals have made in electronic records. However, patient data needs to be protected and to further elaborate this – The National Institute of Standards and technology (NIST) has released a report regarding the security of information as far as storage devices are concerned.  Additionally a report by the United States Department of Health and Human Services titled “Reassessing Your Security Practices in a Health IT Environment: A Guide for Small Health Care Practices” states some of the methods in which HIPAA compliance can be maintained.

In the changing healthcare industry, usage of mobile technology to access Electronic Health Records is vastly advantageous and almost imperative, however physicians need to maintain patient privacy through administrative, technical and physical safeguards and observe HIPAA guidelines and physicians pressed for time can make this possible by outsourcing their services.

Medicalbillersandcoders.com well updated with HIPAA compliance and other issues related to the Health IT sector, maintain utmost confidentiality regarding client data. Equipped in handling all the administrative and technical details to preserve patient’s data security, MBC has guided thousands of practices across the 50 states in the US to exchange data securely and supported doctors to automate their practices making healthcare more electronically secure.