ICD-10 will impact diagnosis and inpatient procedure coding for
everyone who is covered by the HIPAA and not merely those who just submit
Medicare or Medicaid claims. ICD-10-CM
will be used in every U.S. health care setting therefore home health agencies will
have to begin using this coding set.
Here is what your home health agency must do in order to prepare for
ICD-10-CM transition:
1. Version 5010: Agencies have accomplished the first step by upgrading to Version 5010.
2. Check the Transition Plans: You must check the transition plans of your billing service. In case your agency takes care of billing and software development in-house or if you are using paper forms, you must plan for billing or medical records, finance, IT, etc to coordinate and work on ICD-10 transition.
3. Updated OASIS: Look for the updated version of the OASIS data set, OASIS C-1, with updated revisions to adjust new ICD-10 diagnosis codes in M1010, 1016, 1020, and M1022. M1012 (Inpatient Procedures) will be removed. There will be other small changes in the
OASIS C-1 data set which you have to be mindful of.
4. Implementation Strategy: Start developing an implementation strategy, according to the revised home health guidelines at AudioEducator, that involves an evaluation of the impact on your organization, an elaborate timeline, and a real budget.
5 Start updating your clinicians’ know-how of medical terminology: You will require this knowledge before you start updating yourself on the ICD-10-CM code set, which is much more comprehensive and complicated that its ICD-9 counterpart.
6. Get acquainted with new ICD-10 codes: Learn the ICD-10 diagnosis codes counterparts for the most frequently used ICD-9 codes, gradually change to the ICD-10 system.
7. Get ready in advance: You must start training on the ICD-10 code set 6-9 months prior to the implementation date. Go and buy an ICD-10 manual, schedule ICD-10 training for your coding staff, arrange coding coverage while coders are in training.
Visit AudioEducator for more updates on home health guidelines and ICD-10 diagnosis codes
