Physician practices remain optimistic about their ability to meet the ICD-10 deadline and are slightly more prepared to meet that goal than last year, according to a new survey from cloud-based healthcare billing and payment solutions vendor Navicure.
This survey, however, found that only 21 percent feel they are on track with preparation efforts. In last year's poll, published prior to the latest ICD-10 delay, 74 percent said they still hadn't started implementing their transition plan for the coding switch.
A majority of the 350 respondents (57 percent) were practice administrators or billing managers from practices with one to 10 providers.
Among the other findings:
- 67 percent don't think ICD-10 will be delayed again.
- Potential impact on revenue and cash flow is their greatest concern (59 percent).
- Forty-one percent of respondents cite lack of payer readiness as the most challenging issue. End-to-end testing with payers remains a priority for practices, though a growing number of practices are opting out of testing opportunities.
- 58 percent paused their ICD-10 preparation efforts when the last delay was announced.
Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Health made clear at a recent hearing that they do not want to see the ICD-10 transition delayed again.
Previous delays didn't help the industry and only served to hinder forward momentum, pediatrician Michael Lee, director of clinical informatics at Atrius Health, recently wrote in Physicians Practice.
Of nearly 15,000 test claims received by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid for the first round of end-to-end ICD-10 testing, 81 percent were accepted, according to statistics revealed by the agency Wednesday.
Meanwhile a survey published at the Journal of the American Health Information Management Association put the cost of ICD-10 implementation at $4,372 for practices with a single provider and $11,028 for practices with six providers ($1,838 per provider).
A report from the American Medical Association, however, predicts that small practice costs will range anywhere from $56,639 to more than $226,000. Medium practices, it estimates, will pay between $213,364 and $824,735 for implementation; costs for large practices are predicted to run between $2 million and $8 million.
To learn more:
- find the announcement
- here's the survey report (.pdf)