Taking an early Post ICD10 Transition Pulse from Five Surveys

by Clive Riddle, December 3, 2015

As time ticks by after the October 1st ICD10 transition, early survey results are coming in regarding the impact and implications for providers. Let’s take a look at these initial findings:

KPMG has just released results from a survey of 298 attendees of a Nov 9th ICD10 webcast for providers, which found:

• 28 percent saying the transition has been smooth
• 51 percent found “a few technical issues, but overall successful.”
• 11 percent described the transition as a “failure to operate in an ICD-10 environment.”

 Survey respondents listed challenges they see with ICD-10 as:

1. rejected medical claims
2. clinical documentation and physician education
3. reduced revenue from coding delays
4. information technology fixes

The survey found 42 percent of respondents said all of these challenges are part of ICD-10. 11 percent of claimants said they did not expect those challenges to arise.

46 percent of respondents said they were thinking of pursuing initiatives in clinical documentation improvement, revenue cycle optimization, and electronic health record and IT system optimization. 25 percent were pursuing none of those options.

Last month, Healthcare Informatics reported on a survey from Himagine Solutions that found “Large hospitals have reported a 30 to 45 percent productivity reduction on the inpatient side and a 20 to 40 percent productivity reduction on the outpatient side since implementation the ICD-10 codes.”

Also last month, the vendor Kareo announced that 99 percent of client claims submitted in the first month of the ICD-10 coding transition were successful, and 87 percent of clients have already been paid for at least one submitted claim. 11 days was the average time to payment for ICD-10 claims. Kareo also surveyed its customer base directly to gauge its experience with the transition. Based on customer responses, 57 percent of respondents considered the ICD-10 transition “easy” or “very easy.” Just three percent of respondents considered the transition “difficult,” or “very difficult.” The remaining 40 percent considered the event “moderate.”

Executive Insight reported that “in early October, Navicure, a claims management and patient payment solutions provider, only processed 50% of the medical claims processing it would've in pre-ICD-10 months, which could have been a result of providers' caution along with a mix of ICD-9 claims from the previous month. Towards the end of October, however, data showed that claims gradually increased to 90% of the pre-transition volume. Rejections, too, are staying in a manageable range rather than spiking like many healthcare experts anticipated.”

Finally, Information Management reported on a SERMO survey in which “physicians were asked if the new requirement to use ICD-10 has taken away time from patients. Two-thirds of responding doctors said yes. The poll of 1,249 physicians was conducted from November 20 to 30. Although doctors strongly indicated that the code switchover has detracted from patient care, that percentage is down significantly from a SERMO poll last month that asked members if ICD-10 was taking their time away from patient care. At that time, 86 percent said it had negatively impacted patient care while only 14 percent said it had not.”