ICD-10 News the Landslide Leader in 2015’s Top 10 Stories
By - Just as driving a car with your eyes permanently glued to the rearview mirror is not necessarily the most intelligent decision, catching a glimpse every now and then of your current whereabouts is essential. When it comes to continued revenue cycle success, sometimes you have to look back to see how far you have really come.
Talk of modernizing an antiquated healthcare system was buzzed about incessantly this year. News about the mandatory International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision (ICD-10) notably ruled the spotlight as the leading focus of over half of 2015’s most popular RevCycleIntelligence.com stories.
As the first of a two-part series, here are RevCycleIntelligence.com’s top 10 stories for 2015, beginning with number 10.
10. Top 6 Trending Payment Models Demanding New Long-Term Focus
This year, the healthcare industry was met with great revenue cycle change. Last February, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) shook up the healthcare industry with a brand new announcement.
HHS proposed a plan to tie 1 in 3 traditional Medicare payments to value-based outcomes by the end of next year. HHS also declared an innovative goal for 85 percent of fee-for-service payments to be value-based.
9. Quantify Denial Rates for Smooth Revenue Cycle Management
Another topic of high interest this year was about quantifying denial rates – the percentage of claims healthcare payers deny within a given timeframe – to maintain healthy revenue cycle activity.
Xtelligent Media readers wanted to know more this year about why claims are denied in the first place. The answer was convoluted, complicated, and difficult to define, perhaps making this topic only the more relevant.
The American Medical Association (AMA) referenced a lack of standardization in the health insurance industry as something worth addressing in due time.
8. 4 State Medicaid Agencies Secure ICD-10 Deadline Extension
Ready or not? Maybe not. Lack of time was a leading issue this year when it came to ICD-10 implementation preparation levels and subsequent crosswalk initiatives.
Four state Medicaid agencies – Alabama, Louisiana, California, and Montana – received approval last September from the Centers of Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) officials to be exempt from the ICD-9 to ICD-10 switchover.
7. Top 8 ICD-10 Implementation Advice from Healthcare Experts
If the healthcare industry had a crystal ball, what would it say? RevCycleIntelligence.com asked numerous healthcare leaders and experts this year to share their insights and predictions about the future. Chats of ICD-10 implementation fears, challenges, and opportunities in numerous exclusive interviews ensued.
Leading organizations weighed in, such as the American Medical Association (AMA), Workgroup Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI), the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), and the American Hospital Association (AHA).
Key advice included bracing for upcoming financial impact, assessing realistic cost measurements, having the resources available to handle possible surges in claims denials, and revving up preparation efforts.
6. CMS, AMA Announce ICD-10 Deal to Avoid Financial Disruption
In a rare collaborative venture, CMS and the AMA joined forces earlier this year regarding an ICD-10 agreement.
“AMA has secured provisions that will ease this transition, particularly for physicians in practices with limited resources,” stated Steven J. Stack, MD, AMA President.
“In response to our extensive communication of physicians’ concerns, [CMS] announced today that it is making several critical changes to the transition period so that physicians can continue to provide high-quality patient care without risking their livelihood.”
“As we work to modernize our nation’s health care infrastructure, the coming implementation of ICD-10 will set the stage for better identification of illness and earlier warning signs of epidemics, such as Ebola or flu pandemics,” asserted Andy Slavitt, Acting Administrator of CMS.
Editor’s note: Stay tuned for the top 5 RevCycleIntelligence.com articles of 2015.
