Posted on 02/07/2011 10:53:48 AM PST by Nachum
(CNSNews.com) - U.S. health care providers and health plans have two years left to adopt a new federally mandated system of medical coding--the shorthand used to list what's wrong with a patient and how much that patient should be charged.
The new, vastly expanded coding system is intended to improve disease management, disease monitoring, and health care reimbursement.
This will be the first major overhaul of the medical coding system in 30 years, and it is separate from the government’s push to have health care providers switch from paper records to electronic health records.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
Medical Practices and Health Insurers Must Use New Federally Mandated Medical Codes, Which Bring Added Expense
ping
Big payoff for the AMA embedded -
WARNING! WARNING!
This is facilitated by Electronic Medical Records!!
It’s a whole lot more than putting your records on a hard drive...it’s a dangerous, invasive electronic interrogation that demoralized the caregiver, and downgrades and impersonalizes healthcare!
29474577228...looked in ear
i93472jsy2877733ksks...looked in nose
gf6625499187mddjw84743736....took pulse
hdgwtwetugjcbrguwefusuvjegsvfhhhhyyyeheecye262635352165..checked eye
Let's start with our Surgeon General, "Admiral" Regina Benjamin. What is the medical code for obese?
I must say, I am amazed they even make a size 62 short Navy service coat.
>>It’s a whole lot more than putting your records on a hard drive...<<
Honestly, it has less to do with records and more to do with billing.
It will be much easier to deny service if a biller puts the wrong diagnostic code (ICD-10) with the service code (CPT).
.................Let’s start with our Surgeon General, “Admiral” Regina Benjamin. What is the medical code for obese?..................
Yeah all of that.
But - She’s black, and that trumps any credentials a white person would bring to Obama’s administration.
And, with standard medical codes, it will be easier to set up a standard approval/denial policy. Standardizing the data is the first step to bring statistics to bear (computer death panel, anyone?).
Apropos of nothing in particular, my primary care physician has just retired - at age sixty-two.
it has less to do with records and more to do with billing.
But, there’s the invasive questions about guns in the home, and questions regarding possible abuse in the home, especially, when asked of unaccompanied children in school clinics.
This does not have anything to do with Obamacare or this administration.
The change to ICD-10 codes has been in the works for almost 20 years. I would have bet money on them being implemented back in 1998. But they kept getting pushed back.
The ICD-9 codes were and are totally inadequate to describe an accurate and finite diagnosis - resulting in all kinds of sub-codes being created to handle all of the variables that are involved in defining and treating a particular condition. Then and now, we spend months exchanging letters with the insurance carriers arguing about the accuracy of the sub-codes that were used.
Using the ICD-10 coding will help eliminate the guesswork and resulting diagnosis coding errors and inconsistency that we have today.
This will result in greater staff efficiency and will lower our billing costs. It also will provide very useful statistics for particular illnesses and what treatments are effective resulting in less expensive and more effective patient care.
This is a good thing.
She's a 278.0 going on a 278.01
>>when asked of unaccompanied children in school clinics.<<
Keep your kids out of school.
Problem solved.
I do.
An expansion of the Diagnostic codes has really nothing to do with any of this.
Yes, it's about billing. Billing Medicare. And because Medicare gets what it wants, private payers wind up using the same coding systems.
However, the industry is still using ICD-9 codes despite attempts to implement ICD-10 codes for a lot longer than a decade. And it's not just matching ICD-9 or ICD-10 diagnostic codes with CPT codes. CPT (Common Procedure Terminology) codes are Level I HCPCS (Health Care Procedural Coding System) codes for physician services. Don't forget about matching your Level II HCPCS codes, simply called HCPCS codes. And are you using the correct modifiers?
And now we'll be changing the coding system? Does anyone realize how many hundreds of pages long the Medicare physician fee schedule is when published each year by code? And how difficult it is to become a REALLY good hospital coder? One who can keep Recovery Audit Contractors at bay?
Yeah, changing the coding system will simplify things and save money.
Hey Baraq needed a “run stopper” for the WH flag football team.
ICD-9 has only 17,000 diagnosis codes. Yes, codes have been added over the last 30 years, but far too few. ICD-10 has 140,000 codes. Medicine's changed.
With ICD-9, I see clients who make a diagnosis that 'doesn't quite fit' several codes.
So “why code” anyway? Seems a numerical description of a diagnosis or symptom has no benefit to the patient or the doctor.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.