ORLANDO – A new resource is available for small practices as they prepare to switch to the ICD-10 coding system.
Officials from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) launched a new website – Road to ICD-10 – to provide a central source of basic information as well as a place to start transitioning to the new code set, which becomes mandatory on Oct. 1.
The site provides fact sheets, training videos, sample codes, and a variety of other resources. It also provides training modules that are specific to certain specialties.
Importantly, it gives physicians a template for building an action plan, said Denesecia Green, director of the Administrative Simplification Group at the CMS Office of eHealth Standards and Services.
The new website provides a central source of basic information as well as a place to start transitioning to the ICD-10 coding system.
So far, templates have been tailored for internal medicine, family practice, pediatrics, cardiology, obstetrics/gynecology, and orthopedics. The site also offers a more general path for other specialties.
According to Ms. Green, the action plan gives physicians a pictorial road map and lists the steps that might help pinpoint where diagnosis codes are used in the practice, how to identify the transition team, how to prepare a budget for the transition to ICD-10, and how to arrange for training.
The site was developed by physicians and came out of a series of listening sessions the agency held with a variety of physicians, said Dr. Ricardo Martinez, a member of the CMS’s small physician practice team, and an emergency physician.
"Physicians are concerned that everything is happening to them, rather than with them or for them," Dr. Martinez said.
However, many in the listening sessions said that they did see some potential benefits with ICD-10. In the end, Dr. Martinez said, physicians had a big question: "If there is a better world ahead, how do you get there?"
The Road to ICD-10 website is designed to help doctors make the journey, Dr. Martinez said.
The site was announced Feb. 26 at the annual meeting of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).
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