WEDI urges HHS to adopt its ICD-10 roadmap

The Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI) is calling on the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) to adopt its ICD-10 roadmap “to minimize continued disruption to the healthcare industry” caused by the compliance delay.

“We are concerned that if the implementation actions continue as is with the new compliance date, the industry could experience ongoing challenges leading to protracted implementation and unnecessary burden and cost,” according to WEDI’s June 6 letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Per its roadmap, developed during an industry summit in April with more than 200 stakeholders, WEDI recommends the following steps:

1. Establish credibility: HHS must assure the industry that the date will not be changed again. Additionally, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services could instill greater confidence by offering early evidence that Medicare and Medicaid are fully prepared for ICD-10 and by conducting and supporting more extensive industry testing.

2. Communicate Medicare and Medicaid readiness: “[W]e encourage Medicare and Medicaid to publicly disclose all ICD-10-related readiness levels and expected testing timeframes.”

3. Expand Medicare and Medicaid testing and quickly disseminate results: CMS should expedite and expand  “end-to-end” testing.

4. Target outreach to non-covered entities: HHS should work with the appropriate state authorities and encourage the adoption of ICD-10 by workers’ compensation and other property and casualty carriers that utilize diagnosis and procedure codes.

5. Convey a more positive message: HHS should convey a positive message on ICD-10 benefits to healthcare.

6. Focus provider education on clinical documentation improvement (CDI): HHS should develop CDI-focused educational resources and discuss this issue at forums aimed at smaller organizations.

7. Encourage an effective private sector testing process: HHS should establish selective testing processes that illustrate each key function is working correctly.

8. Consider conducting or supporting limited pilots: The additional year provides sufficient time to conduct limited pilots with those covered entities that are ready and willing to send and receive standard transactions using ICD-10 codes.

9. Support the PMSAP: The launch of the EHNAC-WEDI Practice Management System Accreditation Program should provide additional purchasing confidence to those provider practices required to upgrade software to accommodate ICD-10.

10. Establish clear milestones and track readiness: “The milestones must be clearly defined regarding what constitutes meeting each milestone. Leveraging existing checklists or bullet points may be useful in this regard.”

11. Re-energize the RECs: Many organizations, especially smaller ones, need additional education or other assistance in their compliance efforts.  

12. Expand communication and messaging: We recommend HHS continue to develop and publicize educational resources or other tools and to work with WEDI and others such as local or regional resources to reach a broader audience.

13. Support WEDI’s outreach efforts: WEDI would like HHS’ continued support of its industry outreach efforts.

Read the full letter here.