As reported recently in this blog, the United States department of Health and Human Services (HHS) just proposed a new implementation deadline for the coding requirements laid out under ICD-10. While the original deadline was meant to be October 2013, HHS representatives suggested that the date be extended by one year to ease the burden already being placed on facilities busy transitioning to a system of electronic medical and billing records.
Interestingly, it is reported by Healthcare IT News that the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) has been very vocal in recommending that medical facilities across the country do their best to implement ICD-10 provisions as quickly as possible, regardless of the deadline extension.
"The transition to ICD-10 is inevitable and remains the future for coding classification systems," said Lynne Thomas Gordon, AHIMA's CEO, in the article. "We are sorry to see that our members and organizations following HHS’ initial calendar may suffer from the delay, as will our many higher education colleges and universities that changed their curricula to meet this same requirement date."
Gordon went on to say that while she sympathizes with small medical facilities whose resources are already being strained with other healthcare IT implementation requirements, the continued delay will only generate losses by failing to have critical information available when and where it is needed.
Considering Gordon's recommendation, small facility managers may be wondering how to successfully complete all these transitional tasks without toppling their internal staff. An excellent solution to this problem is partnering with a medical technology consulting company that can provide the necessary implementation assistance and staff training to successfully undertake a shift to electronic medical records software and ICD-10 provisions with minimal stress.
Microwize Technology is a leading healthcare IT consultant offering products such as electronic medical records software and medical billing software from top providers like Allscripts and McKesson, including McKesson's Medisoft, Lytec and Practice Choice products.