Even more ICD-10 codes on their way

Last October, ICD-10 was implemented with 68,000 new codes included, and when it was first rolled out, there was much controversy surrounding it. Many people protested the conversion because it was costly to implement and a further time drain on already time-challenged practitioners.

Eventually, the kinks were worked out and the medical community started to adjust.

ICD-10: What Should You be doing in 2016?

Now, it has been announced that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will be adding 1,900 additional diagnostic codes and 3,651 hospital inpatient procedure codes to ICD-10 for fiscal year 2017.

The high number of proposed new codes is associated with clarification of the ICD-10 codes initially implemented, as well as additional codes for new technologies and diseases, says Cedrial Moore, RHIA, American Health Information Management Association approved ICD-10 trainer and ambassador.

“As of March 9, the proposed code revisions include approximately 1,900+ new diagnosis codes and 3,600+ new inpatient procedure codes, including approximately 500+ procedure code revisions,” says Moore, who is also AVP, revenue cycle at Quorum Health Resources, LLC, of Brentwood, Tennessee.“These additions and revisions are greater than the average number of codes revised annually. Final code updates will be published in June.”

Physician wellness is a quality indicator worth measuring

Cardiologists and cardiovascular surgeons will be greatly impacted by the number of inpatient procedure code updates and Moore anticipates that many of the 1,900+ new/proposed diagnosis codes will affect internal medicine and family practitioners as well.

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