Survey finds lower than anticipated ICD-10 costs for small practices

For physicians in small practices, it turns out the cost of moving from ICD-9 to ICD-10 is much less than anticipated, according to a study released by the Professional Association of Health Care Office Management (PAHCOM) and published in the Journal of AHIMA.

The survey of 276 physician practices of fewer than six providers found that total ICD-10-related costs for an entire practice averaged $8,167 and per provider costs averaged $3,430. These expenditures are significantly lower than earlier estimates of $56,639-to-$226,105 in projected ICD-10 implementation costs for small physician practices.

"We hear so much conflicting information about the impact of ICD-10 on the small physician practice," said PAHCOM Director Karen Blanchette, in a statement announcing the survey results. "Our goal was to bring some clarity to the discussion by surveying our members-–office managers who represent hundreds of solo physician and small group physician practices across the United States.

"Our members reported actual data on expenses to date and costs still remaining," Blanchette added. "The PAHCOM survey is the most comprehensive and current data on ICD-10 implementation costs actually being incurred by small physician practices."

The survey included questions on the number of providers in the practice, total expenditures for all ICD-10-related activities including ICD-10 manuals and documentation, ICD-10 training costs, the cost of "super bill" conversion, software system upgrades and testing.

The authors concluded that possible reasons for the numerical differences between the PAHCOM study and earlier figures could be newly available educational and training materials, new resources from the vendor community, and the increasing adoption of EHRs by providers, which have helped to ease some transition expenses and concerns.

Read the complete article.