Doctors: Fewer Billing Headaches Than Expected Under ICD-10
August 10th, 2016 - Practice SuiteWith thousands of new codes added to the 10th revision of the International Classification of Diseases, practices across the country experienced plenty of headaches in preparing for the Oct. 1, 2015 transition date.
Not only did they have to update their EMR systems - a huge undertaking - but staff also needed adequate training on the classification system which hadn't been updated since 1979.
When the Oct. 1, 2015 neared, many practices felt they were underprepared and predicted payment delays, despite a two-year grace period.
But it turns out some of those fears might have been unfounded. Ten months after the transition, the dire predictions of long payment delays and closed practices haven't been nearly as extensive as some initially thought.
We asked several doctors across the country how they've fared billing-wise under ICD-10. They were mostly up beat (or at the very least, indifferent).
"It's been a very effective upgrade for us," said Dr. Cynthia Thaik, Medical Director for the Holistic Healing Heart Center in Burbank, Calif. "We had a smooth transition - much better than expected for all the hype around the transition. It was seamless for us. I still put in the ICD-9 codes that I was used to and the software automatically does the conversion."
Find out what the other doctors we checked in with had to say about billing under ICD-10.
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