Gastroenterologists Foresee Revenue Loss In Icd-10 Transition: Medical Billing Service A Solution?

By Author: Michel Desuza
Total Articles: 8
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The HHS has scheduled the deadline for transition to ICD 10 for gastroenterologists on 1st October, 2014. And now that the deadline is within visible future, gastroenterologists are worried that ICD 10 transition will cause them revenue loss given the way in which it will impact different areas of business. Some CEOs and CFOs have already expressed their concern about how different activities involved in transitioning to ICD 10 are consuming their resources preventing them from moving to a holistic revenue management cycle, which, they believe will help them improve their operations and revenues.
Gastroenterologists realize the challenges involved in ICD 10 transition now because, given the proximity of the deadline, now either they are putting together a transition plan or have made some progress on the planned chalked out by them.
Gastroenterologists are struggling due to:
• The impact of change and realize that unforeseen challenges related to redundancy, reuse and risk across systems and process are undercutting the business value they had predicted.
• Lack of a comprehensive testing plan with ...
... a clear blueprint for the right amount of testing with the processes that would be impacted by it is leaving them to perform tests based on arbitrarily identified testing needs.
• Structural differences between ICD 9 and ICD 10 codes. ICD 9 codes were numeric five-character long, whereas ICD 10 codes are alphanumeric seven character long. Additionally, there were around 18000 ICD 9 codes, while there would be 140000 ICD codes.

However, as much as this is true, there are many gastroenterologists who have successfully adapted to ICD 10 and a close look at how they have done so reveals that they gauged the impact of ICD 10 correctly (or near correctly) through evaluation of risks benefits and long term costs. Additionally, they performed system overhaul or adjustments where needed to accept ICD 10 codes and trained their staff in ICD 10 codes, first by identifying the codes applicable to their practices through ICD 9 and ICD 10 crosswalk and then by helping them understand their nuances.
We don’t claim that these would help you overcome ICD 10 challenges as every practice is different and requires a solution that addresses its unique concerns. However, some gastroenterology centers have also tried out our standard solutions and have benefitted from them.
MBC’s Revenue Management Consulting services can help you to put your revenue management cycle in order by assessing it and ensuring that revenue leakage gaps are closed through smooth flow of gastroenterology data, installation of proper software applications and staff training in how to handle gastroenterology codes.
We can help you to
• Assess the impact of ICD-10 on your practice.
• Learn the keys elements of implementation of ICD-10.
• Understand key documentation challenges.
• Understand the new ICD-10 coding structure

Medicalbillerandcoders.com, the largest consortium of billers and coders in the US, has also been helping several gastroenterology medical billing service care centers, in big and small cities of the US, with its Outsourcing services handling the entire range of activities involved in billing and coding starting from preparation of claims through submission to post-submission follow-ups.