We all know that October 1, 2014 is the date when ICD-10 will go live in the US (if you didn’t know that shame on you, but you know now). There have been plenty of rumblings that ICD-10 is going to be delayed…again. In fact, I even hypothesized that the Healthcare.gov debacle could prompt HHS to delay ICD-10 again.
While I think that there are plenty of reasons why they could choose to delay ICD-10, I now think that there’s no way HHS is going to delay ICD-10 (meaningful use may be another story). There’s so much momentum behind ICD-10 and with the previous delays, I think HHS will go forward with ICD-10 regardless of whatever reasons people come up with for delay.
Is your organization ready for ICD-10? What do you think about the possibilities of a delay? I’m interested to know your views in the comments, but for those too shy to comment I’ve embedded a poll below where you can rate delay or not on a scale from 1 to 5.
In a more complex question to answer, I’m also interested to know if readers think their IT and EHR vendors will be ready for ICD-10. Vote in the poll below.
Check out all of our ICD-10 Tuesdays series of ICD-10 related blog posts.
You are correct in that there is a heightened sense of awareness around anything the Federal government is doing with IT and Healthcare. With our country split down the middle in terms of “blue” and “red” politics, it easy to say we are going to push the date back and it wont matter. That is simply not the case; politics will eventually rear its ugly head. As a healthcare system, we cannot overlook the fact that money’s been spent, organizations have devoted countless amounts of time and effort to realize this date, and trust between providers, hospitals, carriers, and vendors are at stake. In fact, the entire system remains bound by this change, not that dissimilar to the debacle we are watching in Washington today. Overwhelmingly, there is much concern regarding the capabilities required to meet this new system, yet when the private sector faces a challenge, it consistently meets the demand.
I predict that many companies, if not all companies will have a solution in place. The level of workflow effectiveness may vary, i.e. process flow will be flawed or impacted negatively; however, the capability to meet the ICD-10 requirements will have been met. The more up-front time spend in design, the more likely the better outcome achieved.
Back to your question. I believe the government will provide a solution similar to this:
On October 1, 2014 ICD-10 is initiated but not required. The government will provide a grace period of 6-12 months where both ICD-9 and ICD-10 is used. It would be nice to see Medicare and Medicaid payment increases of X% for those companies that comply with ICD-10 up until the date in which it becomes effective as a requirement. This would provide a legitimate push for organizations to adopt earlier.
I know my organization will be ICD-10 ready with workflows that do not impede our client’s processes.
Matt,
Great comments. I agree that many that are “ready” will likely have workflows that aren’t optimal. I think your middle ground grace period is an interesting solution. I never say never with government, but I’ll be surprised if they do even the grace period.
It will come down to what the government feels about CMS’ readiness. Given the ongoing Healthcare.gov debacle, I am certain that resources and leadership attention has been diverted away from ICD-10. If CMS feels comfortable in their readiness to work with ICD-10 launch glitches, then the deadline will stay. If there is any reasonable doubt, then they will use the industry readiness angle to introduce a hard or a soft delay.
Aditya P,
Great point. So, I guess the question is whether CMS will be ready. I still think they will be. Although, the idea of resources being diverted from ICD-10 to Healthcare.gov is an interesting one.
[…] been discussing the possible meaningful use stage 2 extension in the comments of my post: ICD-10 will be delayed. We thought meaningful use delay was possible, and now it’s […]