Home Health & Hospice Week

Know your anatomy and physiology if you want a quick transition.

It's not too early to start educating yourself about 2013's ICD-10 implementation, but don't spend your time trying to memorize code sets.

That was the advice certified coder Rhonda Buckholtz shared with attendees at the AAPC's regional conference in Nashville last month. "It's too soon to learn code sets, plus there's not much sense in learning them right now because final codes won't go into play until later," Buckholtz said in her presentation, "ICD-10: What You Need to Know."

"It's not a bad idea to start looking at how some of your common diagnoses will change, but you really don't need to start memorizing things," she added.

Buckholtz's advice is consistent with what Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services representatives shared during their recent call, "ICD-10 Implementation Strategies for Physicians."

CMS's Daniel Duvall, a physician and medical officer with the Hospital and Ambulatory Policy Group, recommended preparing for ICD-10 by looking at the ICD-9 codes you use most frequently and creating new job aids for those diagnoses. "Pick the top 30 diagnoses you see and concentrate on knowing how to code those appropriately," he said in the call.

"Every form will need updating," Buckholtz said at the AAPC meeting. "If you really want to see the impact of ICD-10, take one of your most frequent diagnosis codes and follow it through your entire ... system. See where it comes into play to help check everything you'll need to update."

Buckholtz said a coder's top focus should be on anatomy and physiology (A&P). "Coders will need a good understanding of so many A&P nuances with ICD-10," she said. "Work on skill sets to get to that level of specificity."

Many ICD-10 codes will be more detailed than their ICD-9 counterparts, which is why adequate A&P knowledge will help coders. For example, Buckholtz noted new diabetes codes will explain underlying manifestations but will no longer include controlled/uncontrolled options. Neoplasm choices will expand by site (including 54 codes for male/female malignant neoplasm of breast, for example).

"It's a great time for coders to step out of their comfort zones and learn new things, even if they're not responsible for training or implementation," Buckholtz said.

Note: More details about the ICD-10 conversion are in Eli's Home Health ICD-9 Alert, available online at http://www.elihealthcare.com/products/home-health-icd-9-alert.