Emergency Medicine

ICD-10 preparedness is more than just about meeting the Oct. 1, 2014 implementation deadline, it's about the possible impact to your emergency medical practice revenue cycle management following the "go live" if you're not. There's talk about a possible increase in denial rates during the transition, which can reduce practice profitability, or possibly even bring it to a screeching halt. Denial rates potentially could increase between 100 and 200 percent, AR days increase by 20 to 40 percent, prolonged declining payments and a near doubling of claim error rates. ICD-10 has prompted a Y2K response. That's because the transition from ICD-9 [...]

Although the implementation deadline for ICD-10 is slated for Oct. 1, 2014, emergency physicians should begin now to prepare for the future implementation of ICD-10-CM coding by improving emergency department documentation. Not only does failure to fully and properly document a patient encounter has many medical, financial, and even regulatory ramifications, it will also significantly impede progress in moving to ICD-10. Documentation can be vague in some instances when it comes to the more definitive diagnoses. That's why the increased specificity and detail in ICD-10-CM codes is expected to be particularly relevant for the types of conditions treated by the emergency [...]

Emergency medicine coding and billing can be more than a little confusing, especially when updates and clarifications are happening practically every day. Take CMS for example. Recently, they released several important clarifications because there's been some confusion and frustration regarding the codes in Chapter 20, External Causes of Morbidity (V, W, X, and Y codes), which will replace the current ICD-9-CM E-Code section. According to CMS as reported in an article from American Association of Professional Coders, "the Official ICD-10-CM Guidelines (I.C.20) state that for any initial encounter from an illness or adverse effect, the codes found in this chapter should [...]

Within all the layers of detailed information you’re learning as you begin to convert your medical practice billing and coding to ICD-10 are the 68,000 diagnosis codes that include those you may not refer to every day. Say, for example, ICD-10’s introduction of 312 codes for injuries by animals. They include: W5922XA: Struck by a turtle, initial encounter W5609XA: Other contact with dolphin, initial encounter W58.11XA: Bitten by a crocodile, initial encounter W58.01XA: Bitten by alligator, initial encounter Then there are those for even more specific circumstances: X52XXXD: Prolonged stay in weightless environment, subsequent encounter V91.07XA: Burn due to water skis [...]