CMS-Sponsored Website Provides ICD-10 Guidance

Although the deadline for ICD-10 implementation has been moved to October 1, 2015, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has developed, in collaboration with physicians, a free tool that is specialty-specific and offers customizable, actionable advice and tips to ease physician practices through the transition to ICD-10.

The Road to 10 Action Plan contains a checklist of items to consider when planning the transition to ICD-10, organized into five key steps:

• Plan Your Journey
• Train Your Team
• Update Your Processes
• Engage Your Vendors and Payers
• Test Your System and Processes

CMS has identified physicians across multiple specialties to serve as Small Practice Physician Champions. These physicians actively utilize the opportunities that digital transformation provides to improve the care of the patients they serve, sharing a greater interest in the role of eHealth and ICD-10 in efforts to improve the quality of patient care.

Most importantly, as practicing physicians, the Small Practice Physician Champions each have unique perspectives that come from caring for patients and running a practice on a day-to-day basis. These physicians are on the leading edge of change in healthcare, and have an exceptional understanding of the opportunities and challenges facing physician practices today.

The Small Practice Physician Champions are dedicated to giving greater voice to physician insights and perspectives from the field and at the bedside, including sharing clinical thought leadership and forward thinking perspectives.

The ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS code sets, as well as the official ICD-10-CM guidelines, are available free of charge on the “2014 ICD-10-CM and GEMs” and “2014 ICD-10-PCS and GEMs” pages of the CMS ICD-10 website. Additionally, it is important to contact your payers and trading partners to request a copy of the crosswalk mapping tool they are utilizing to ensure its accuracy.