All Entries Tagged With: "information technology"
Questions to ask your IT team
During a November 17 virtual meeting hosted by the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), co-presenter Laurine Johnson, MS, RHIA, CPC-H, director of HIM services at Ingenix, gave the following list of questions you should ask your information technology (IT) team to prepare for ICD-10 implementation:
- How does 5010 impact my ICD-10 implementation?
- Which databases contain ICD-9-CM codes?
- Which software packages include ICD-9-CM codes?
- Which interfaces include ICD-9-CM?
- What reports contain ICD-9-CM codes?
- How does ICD-10 impact my electronic health record?
- How many vendors are involved with the software, databases, connectivity, and interfaces?
- What are the vendor plans for implementing ICD-10 and how does it impact this organization?
- Should we convert data from ICD-9-CM to ICD-10? Should we convert ICD-10 data to ICD-9-CM codes?
- Does software need to be upgraded or replaced?
- What will be the capital and operating budget impact?
- What is the testing plan?
Have you already consulted with your IT team regarding ICD-10 implementation? Are there other questions you would add to this list? Were you surprised to hear any of the answers your IT team provided? Share your feedback, and post a comment!
Revamp and redesign your IT system
At the American Academy of Professional Coders national conference in Las Vegas, the ICD-10 sessions were buzzing as the HIM/coding community sounded out about the impact ICD-10 will have on information technology (IT) systems.
One session attendee described the IT implications as “Y2K on steroids.” Another person at a separate session said, “This is going to make Y2K look like a blip on the radar.”
Deborah Grider, CPC, CPC-H, CPC-P, CPC-I, CEMC, gave a presentation titled, “ICD-10-CM: The Time To Begin Preparation is NOW,” and in that session, Grider provided the following tips:
- Vendors should plan for at least 12 months of testing prior to the October 1, 2013 implementation date.
- Your IT team will need to ensure that ICD-9 and ICD-10 can work in tandem for the months prior to and the months after ICD-10 takes effect.
- Make sure that the 5010 electronic code sets are in place at your facility. You must implement the 5010 code set by January 1, 2012.
- A typical provider group of three or more physicians might spend $2,000 – $8,000 for the IT conversion or system upgrade.
- Dual systems (ICD-9 and ICD-10) create space constraints for data storage
Serifs can save coders valuable time
It may sound like such a small detail, but when your information technology (IT) team is looking to revamp and redesign your system, it’s vital that you specifically request that the new system uses serif fonts. This can make a huge difference when your coders are pouring through 155,000 codes, trying to discern between “I”s and “1″s, for example. Even though it might shave off less than a minute for each record your coders have to code, multiple this by the number of records they code in a month, and you can see how those precious minutes can add up to a significant cost savings. This was just one of many helpful tips I learned during the American Academy of Professional Coders (AAPC) national conference in Las Vegas. Sheri Bernard, CPC, CPC-H, CPC-P, vice president of clinical coding content at the AAPC, shared this pointer when she presented the session titled, “Preparing for ICD-10-PCS.” Stay tuned for more insight into ICD-10 from the AAPC conference.
