Slow progress on ICD-10

While the ICD-10 delay afforded organizations an additional year to prepare for the transition, many organizations are not taking advantage of that time, reports Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI).

These findings emerge from WEDI’s August 2014 ICD-10 readiness survey, which included 514 respondents consisting of 324 providers, 87 vendors and 103 health plans. WEDI has conducted such a survey annually to measure industry progress on ICD-10 since 2009.

“It appears the delay has negatively impacted provider progress, causing two-thirds of provider respondents to slow down efforts or place them on hold,” according to WEDI’s letter to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell. The organization noted other factors slowing down progress including competing internal priorities and other regulatory mandates.

Some of the findings:

• About one-half of providers indicate they have completed their impact assessment, essentially the same number as the October 2013 survey. Mostly larger organizations have completed the impact assessments, while many smaller organizations indicate they are unsure when they will complete this step.
• About one-third of providers have commenced with external testing, while in October 2013 about two-thirds said they expected to begin by the middle of 2014. More than one-half reported that they do not expect to begin external testing until 2015 or responded “unknown.”
• One-half of providers indicate they plan to test with a sample of health plans or only with clearinghouses, while one-quarter plan to test with the majority of their payers. These numbers are similar to the October 2013 survey.

Read the letter.