Anesthesia Billing & Management

Last week, The American Academy of Professional Coders unveiled an ICD-10 resource on its website to help payers and providers comply with the mandated code sets.

“Our message is simply that ICD-10 will change everything,” said AAPC CEO Deborah Grider.

The United States will begin to officially use ICD-10 on October 1, 2013. While that is still a few years away, it is AAPC’s intent to educate and raise awareness with healthcare professionals in plenty of time before the October 1, 2013 compliance deadline.

The ICD-10 resource page on AAPC’s website includes a code conversion tool, an online application for tracking and measuring the progress of ICD-10 implementation, and interactive floor plans to show how ICD-10 affects different aspects of a doctor’s practice or health plan. Among other features is also a collection of articles discussing ICD-10.

The page also comes with interactive graphics to illustrate how the changes in coding standards will affect different aspects of a health care practice or health plan.

If you are in the medical billing industry or are part of a medical practice, the ICD-10 revisions will be about more than just coding changes. It’s going to change everything about your practice. However, if you do want to concentrate on how it will alter the coding aspect of the game that is certainly a daunting challenge. The number of diagnostic codes under ICD-10-CM will more than quadruple, going from 13,500 to 69,000. And for inpatient procedures, the number jumps from 4,000 codes to 71,000 codes.

That’s a lot of catching up to do. All of this underscores how important it is not to delay in prepping for the changes: 2013 will be here before you know it! For more on all the tools available go to the AAPC’s website.