# How do I convince the procrastinator?



## nc_coder (Oct 11, 2012)

In my office, I work for a very set-in-his ways physician that runs his own practice (we are not owned by the hospital).  Our office manager has the mindset of not doing anything until it is the eleventh hour and it HAS to be done.  The extension of the I-10 deadline did not help my case for preparation any.  There is no way I can convince either of them that we need to prepare now for a conversion that may or may not happen in 2 years.  I cannot use the excuse of "they say it is set in stone for 2014".  They had said there would be no delays for the 2013 conversion either.  So, my dilemma is, how to convince my office to start preparing for something that is still 2 years away.


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## honeybee (Oct 11, 2012)

Maybe try approaching it from the payment standpoint that if prep isnt done ahead of time this will more than likely cause fallout with claims and a loss of income for the business which effects everyones pocketbook in the long run. 

Not only losing income from possible fallout of the system issues, but docs and coders not being prepared either. When the converion to 5010 happened we had massive fallout despite months of prep and even testing, there were issues with the ins plans themselves as far as system parameters causing rejects on their end, issues with the way electronic claims were formatted and leaving our doors resulted in many corrections due to rejects and denial, we had our service centers printing in the payment remit box and it was a huge nighmare. We are still trying to clean up accounts that we run across that we hadn't caught and I can't tell u how many of our claims went timely and we had to write off despite months and months of prep and constant follow up..GOOD LUCK!!


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## nc_coder (Oct 16, 2012)

*Thank you*

Thanks for your reply.  I'm not sure that will work.  Our 5010 went off without a hitch, but our software vendor did all the work for us.  We really didn't do anything here in the office and had little to no problems.  Our 5010 transition experience wouldn't be a convincing arguement.  My concern is getting the providers to change their documentation habits.


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## lorrpb (Oct 16, 2012)

Point out that the reason 5010 went off without a hitch is because you were well prepared, thanks to your software vendor, and that you need to do the same re ICD-10. But the software vendor won't take care of everything with this. Begin talking to them about the documentation issue and how this will impact reimbursement, etc. Point out areas where you see documentation issues, or suggest that the office do an AAPC Readiness Assessment to find out if you will be ready. https://www.aapc.com/ICD-10/assessment-readiness.aspx

Obviously it's going to take more than one conversation to bring them around, so just keep peppering them with information bit by bit. Give yourself a pat on the back for being proactive!


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## Walker22 (Oct 18, 2012)

One thing you can do is to audit some of your encounters and try to re-code them for ICD-10. If you are unable to to narrow the diagnosis down to a specific ICD-10 code, then that is a red flag that the documentation needs to change. If you show them how you will be unable to code the claims correctly, hence hindering future payments, that may spur a change in attitude. Good luck!


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