Neurosurgery Coding Alert

Ask yourself these top seven (7) questions before October 1. Get into action if any tasks are incomplete on this checklist for ICD-10-CM readiness.

1. Have you contacted all your vendors, such as payers, clearinghouses, and laboratory, pathology, or radiology vendors, to ensure they are or will be ICD-10-CM compliant?

2. Have you tested submitting codes from your Practice Management system to your payers and clearinghouses and submitting orders (labs/diagnostics/imaging studies) from your EHR to appropriate vendors when ICD-10-CM codes will be necessary?

3. Have you identified your top 20-30 diagnoses codes and trained appropriate staff on ICD-10-CM language, criteria, and rules for coding, billing, and clinical documentation? (your top diagnoses codes can be based on the volume in your practice and the revenue these code generate, or would be at risk, for you)

4. Have you optimized all preferences and enhancements, such as Billable Indicators and Clinical Qualifiers, within your systems to assist in the ICD-10-CM transition?

5. Have you reviewed current clinical documentation to identify potential gaps of requirements when coding ICD-10-CM?

6. If necessary, have you loaded the ICD-10 dictionaries in both your Practice Management and EHR applications?

7. For all forms containing ICD-9-CM codes, have you considered or found an alternate way of identifying ICD-10-CM codes on your existing Encounter Forms? Do you have a system in place to identify and rectify errors?