ICD-10 Go-Live, October 1, 2015… NYP ICD-10 Go-Live, July 1, 2015 – What it all means.

Rachel Tornheim

On October 1st, 2015, the entire healthcare industry in the U.S. will transition to ICD-10 as mandated by CMS.  On July 1st, three months prior, NYP will have its internal go-live for ICD-10, implementing ICD-10 for several internal processes that do not rely on interactions with external entities.  The purpose of this early internal go-live is to give us a buffer period during which we can practice using ICD-10, monitor and collect feedback, and potentially make adjustments to our processes in advance of the national go-live.

The internal processes that will be using ICD-10 as of July 1st are:

  • Provider Documentation in the EMR.  All providers will be documenting with the additional specificity necessary to support accurate ICD-10 coding.  They will be supported by the ICDx widget, a tool that will be embedded in Allscripts SCM that helps lead the provider to select diagnoses that meet ICD-10 specificity requirements.
  • Documentation Improvement activities.  The Documentation Improvement department, which is part of Health Information Management, is tasked with reviewing patient charts and querying physicians if any of the documentation appears deficient or requires clarification.  As of July 1st, the Documentation Improvement nurses will be reviewing charts with ICD-10 documentation requirements in mind, and will query physicians for those additional requirements as appropriate.
  • Coding.  Dual coding, or the generation of both ICD-9 and ICD-10 codes during a single coding session, is critical for ICD-10 readiness because it allows our coders to practice coding in ICD-10 while also building an inventory of dual coded cases that can be used to analyze the impact of ICD-10 on outcomes such as reimbursement and quality metrics.  As of July 1st, all of our coders will be engaging in dual coding.
  • IT interfaces.  All of our IT systems that receive and send ICD-9 codes have had to be updated to be able to store ICD-10 codes, which are longer.  The interfaces through which these systems send ICD codes to one another are currently being tested.  On July 1st, interfaces that go into Eagle will begin sending both ICD-9 and ICD-10 codes.

Between July 1st and October 1st, we will monitor the above processes and make any necessary adjustments to ensure a smooth full transition to ICD-10 on October 1st.