Moving Forward on ICD-10: Harder Than It Looks

And the other thing you’re hearing, and we would concur with, is, be ready a year ahead of time, so you can put your organization through its paces; ICD-10 testing is more invasive than anything we’ve had to test in the past few years, because it’s not just testing an information system. As rigorous as meaningful use testing is, with ICD-10, it’s financial, and you’re also testing individuals, such as physicians, for proper coding processes, etc. And some organizations are tempted to put off physician training until close to the deadline. But what we’re hearing is that they can only teach physicians one or two concepts at a time, and it will take months for them to really learn those things. And when you’ve got dozens of concepts embedded, you need to start now, so you can teach the concepts one at a time, each quarter, and to inspect to make sure you’re doing it right and they’re getting it right.

It’s fascinating.

Yes, and frankly, a lot of the stuff people have been saying is boring; it’s the same stuff people have been talking about for 18 months. But at our summit, people really were buzzing with ideas and shared conversations, the people who were already ahead in this process.