Happy Holidays from Welter Healthcare Partners
From all of us at Welter Healthcare Partners –nnWe wish you all the joys of the holiday season and happiness and prosperity throughout the coming year!nn
Grandma Got Run Over My A Reindeer
S30.0XXA — Contusion of buttocksnW55.32XA — Struck by reindeernY92.89 — Santa’s driveway as the place of occurrencennIn preparation for the upcoming deadline for ICD-10 implementation, Welter Healthcare Partners presents weekly ICD-10 Codes of the Week! Our goal is to familiarize you with the new and expanded code set and the additional clinical documentation needed from your providers to comply with ICD-10 coding, and more importantly, for accurate and clean claims submission to keep your revenue stream flowing! We are to help YOU prepare for the October 1, 2015 implementation date. Please don’t hesitate to contact us for all of your training and education needs!
ICD-10 is Alive and Well, and Just Dodged the Biggest Bullet to Date
Saturday night, in a rare weekend session, the so-called “Cromnibus” federal funding bill, “HR 83 – Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015” passed the US Senate without any amendments delaying ICD-10, after passing the House of Representatives late in the evening on Thursday, December 11. Selected physician groups had attempted to insert a two-year ICD-10 delay into the bill.nnThe Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has estimated that the last delay, enacted April 1 through a legislative act of Congress, has cost the healthcare industry approximately $6.8 billion in lost investments, not including the cost associated with missed opportunities for better health data to improve quality of care and patient safety.n
CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CROMNIBUS BILL
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Source: www.AHIMA.org; December 18, 2014.
Holiday Pastime Gone Awry…
S68.011A — Complete traumatic amputation of right thumbnW01.118A — Fall with striking against sharp bladenV00.211A — Fall from ice-skatesnY92.330 — Ice skating rink as place of occurrencennIn preparation for the upcoming deadline for ICD-10 implementation, Welter Healthcare Partners presents weekly ICD-10 Codes of the Week! Our goal is to familiarize you with the new and expanded code set and the additional clinical documentation needed from your providers to comply with ICD-10 coding, and more importantly, for accurate and clean claims submission to keep your revenue stream flowing! We are to help YOU prepare for the October 1, 2015 implementation date. Please don’t hesitate to contact us for all of your training and education needs!
Important CMS Updates — Provider Enrollment Application Fee Amount for CY 2015
Provider Enrollment Application Fee Amount for CY 2015
nOn December 2, CMS issued a notice: Provider Enrollment Application Fee Amount for Calendar Year 2015 CMS-6056-N, effective January 1, 2015. This notice announces a $553.00 CY 2015 application fee for institutional providers that are initially enrolling in the Medicare or Medicaid program or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP); revalidating their Medicare, Medicaid, or CHIP enrollment; or adding a new Medicare practice location. This fee is required with any enrollment application submitted on or after January 1, 2015 and on or before December 31, 2015.n
CLICK HERE TO VIEW APPLICATION FEE REQUIREMENT MATRIX
nCMS extended the deadline to attest to meaningful use for the Medicare Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Program 2014 nnEarly last week CMS extended the deadline for eligible hospitals and Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) to attest to meaningful use for the Medicare Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Program 2014 reporting year from 11:59 pm EST on November 30, 2014 to 11:59 pm EST on December 31, 2014. This extension will allow more time for hospitals to submit their meaningful use data and receive an incentive payment for the 2014 program year, as well as avoid the 2016 Medicare payment adjustment.n
CLICK HERE For more information on the EHR Incentive Program
nSource: www.cms.gov; 2014.nn
Oppose Efforts to Delay ICD-10 to 2017? Write Congress Today!
Recently, physicians requested Congress delay ICD-10 until 2017.nnThe most recent delay of the code sets has already cost the healthcare industry approximately 6.8 billion dollars.nnWe cannot afford another delay. Write your legislators today and ask them to support the October 1, 2015 compliance date.nnBelow is an example letter, as provided by AHIMA.n
As your constituent, I am writing to express my support for the October 1, 2015 compliance date to transition to ICD-10-CM/PCS. The code sets have already been delayed twice, providing plenty of time for members of the physician community to transition.
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As a result delays, Health Information Management (HIM) professionals, health plans, and health care clearinghouses educators, vendors, providers and payers lost investments that were made to prepare for the transition. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimated that the 1 year delay cost the healthcare industry up to 6.6 billion dollars. We cannot afford another delay. HIM work to ensure quality health information and patient safety. To ensure better health data and quality of care, I urge you to move forward with the implementation of ICD-10-CM/PCS and to oppose any future legislative efforts to delay the code sets.
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Additional points of consideration include:
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- According to a recent survey, small physician practices are expected to spend between 1,900 and 6,000 to transition to the new code set. The study can be found on www.coalitionforICD10.org.
- Physician practices do not use all 13,000 diagnosis codes available in ICD-9. Nor will it be required to use the 68,000 codes that are in ICD-10. The majority of the code increases are due to laterality-which is not currently available in ICD-9.
- CMS offers a robust plan for physician practices to transition to ICD-10. Click here to view The Road to 10.
- Without ICD-10, the return on investment in EHRs and health data exchange will be greatly diminished.
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A legislative delay of ICD-10 will substantially increase total implementation costs, as HIT expansion requires more systems changes and many previously-completed steps become outdated and need to be repeated. Additional delays in implementing and using the ICD-10-CM codes will also delay the move to pay for healthcare on the basis of quality and outcomes and also complicates the consumer’s ability to choose high quality, low cost healthcare.
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Please provide information on how you plan to vote on any future efforts to delay ICD-10-CM/PCS implementation.
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CLICK HERE TO SEND THIS TO YOUR US SENATORS AND US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TODAY!