Latest WEDI ICD-10 survey finds physician practices struggling

Almost one-quarter of physician practices that responded to the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange's (WEDI) most recent ICD-10 readiness survey will not be ready and another one-quarter said they are unsure.

“Without a dedicated and aggressive effort to complete implementation activities in the time remaining, this lack of readiness may lead to disruption in claims processing," said Jim Daley, WEDI past-chair and ICD-10 Workgroup co-chair. 

The organization shared the survey results and its recommendations with the Department of Health and Human Services.   The survey also found that only about 20 percent of physician practices have started or completed external testing and less than 50 percent responded that they were ready or would be ready for Oct. 1.  Almost 75 percent of hospitals and health systems have started or completed external testing. Additionally, nearly 90 percent responded that they were ready or would be ready by the compliance date, while a few were unsure if they would be ready. Nearly 75 percent of health plans have begun or completed external testing. 40 percent responded that they were already prepared and the remaining 60 percent said they would be ready by Oct. 1.    Seventy-five percent of vendor respondents have fully completed product development and no one responded that their products would not be ready by the compliance date.  

WEDI recommendations to HHS included the following:

• HHS should expeditiously provide full transparency regarding the readiness of individual Medicaid agencies by state.
• The recently-announced Ombudsman position should be appointed as soon as possible and WEDI strongly urges CMS to not wait until the compliance deadline to complete this appointment.
• The go-live ICD-10 support plan should include leveraging WEDI’s and CMS’ implementation support program, which already serves as the central source for collecting ICD-10 industry issues and solutions.

“It is critical to closely monitor industry progress and testing as we approach the compliance date to gauge what might occur on Oct. 1, 2015,” said Jean P. Narcisi, chair of WEDI. “In light of our most recent findings, we are hopeful that industry leaders take the necessary steps to help ensure that the transition to ICD-10 is completed with minimal disruption to the healthcare industry.”

The survey results are based on responses from 621 respondents, consisting of 453 providers, 72 vendors and 96 health plans. This survey is the eleventh ICD-10 readiness survey WEDI has conducted since 2009.