ICD-10 Delayed to 2015- will this Delay give your Medical Practice more Time?

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ICD-10 delayed to 2015- will this delay give
your medical practice more time?
Barack Obama signed a legislation in April that has delayed the ICD-10 transition by one
year. Even though providers get one more year to prepare, this change has shaken up
the healthcare industry. Not just physicians, but health insurers who were prepared to
use the new code set from October 2014 will now have to re-evaluate their
implementation plans.
Hospitals will bear the brunt of this delay:
This delay has brought a financial blow to health systems and hospitals that have
devoted time, money and resources to get ready for implementation of ICD-10 in 2014.

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Many small practices were not prepared for the transition but majority of payers and
hospitals were.
According to experts, if the delay would have been announced in 2013 it wouldn’t have
had the same negative impact as the delay in 2014. In case of hospitals, this delay will
cost more as consulting engagements and timelines have been extended.
Not just hospitals but a large number of private practices were also prepared for the
transition. They had to manage costly technology upgrades, time-consuming training
sessions and complex clinical documentation improvement programs to implement the
changes. Lack of time, money and resources had created enough obstacles for them and
now this delay has discredited their efforts, with the change proving detrimental.

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Staffing issues might arise:?
Due to this delay, practices and hospitals will have to bear the expenses of maintaining
testing procedures for one more year while undergoing changes or system upgrades
necessary for next year. Practices are also going to face staffing issues due to the shift in
ICD-10 deadline. Some providers have coders who planned on retiring after 1st October
2014. Now that the date has been changed, providers will have to see what needs to be
done in order to get experienced coders.
Providers are now waiting for CMS to give more information about new transition
deadline and what the delay will mean for vendors, clearinghouses, providers and all
concerned parties. In a nutshell, this change in date has left various questions
unanswered from testing and training to various other tasks.

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Will delay mean more time to prepare?
There is no doubt that this delay will help unprepared practices prepare for the new
coding system but it will also pose significant resource and financial impact on every
entity that was invested in the transition heavily.
If your practice is still unprepared, take advantage of this delay and make necessary
changes. You can outsource your requirements to a billing company as a billing partner
can help you in smooth transition to ICD-10.
Medicalbillersandcoders.com has been helping practices prepare for ICD-10 transition.
With the largest consortium of coders and billers, the team at MBC has the required
expertise for handling demands of ICD-10 and HIPAA-5010. You can rely on the MBC
team for managing your revenue cycle, maximize reimbursements and reduce claim
denials so that you get ample time for focusing on patient care.

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