Tips to Help Physicians Switch to ICD-10

Jittery about using ICD-10 codes? Well, here are some tips for physicians that'll help them make a smooth transition to ICD-10.

It's practically not feasible to remember by heart all the codes that the ICD-10 code set contains. However you can take heart as switching to the new code set will not need practitioners to learn new code sets – in fact, most practitioners probably do not know ICD-9 codes by heart.

ICD-10 Tips for Physicians

In order to be all keyed up for ICD-10, physicians will need to take a look at the codes they use very often in their offices and come up with new job aids or superbills for those procedures. You will stand in good stead if you take a good look at the codes that you see most frequently in your practice. You can choose the top 30 diagnoses that they see and concentrate on knowing how to code those properly.


Here's what physicians need to do:

You should use your list of the top diagnoses that your practice sees to find the corresponding ICD-10 codes.

After this, see to it that coders are trained, that your claims are form 5010 compliant and that your claim submission system supplier is ICD-10 ready.

If you have an EMR or you plan to get one, see to it that it can handle ICD-10.

If you are beginning to bring an EMR, you should convert to ICD-10 first, and not bring one under ICD-9 and then convert.

You will not be able to glean ICD-10 codes from a physician's documentation if it is not thorough and detailed. Therefore physicians should take the opportunity to boost their documentation skills.

Note: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid will very soon determine ways to process claims that span the ICD-10 implementation date.
For more ICD 10 coding tips, sign up for a good coding resource like SuperCoder. Such a site comes with an ICD-10 code lookup tool to help you in your coding.