Although many in the healthcare industry grumbled at the announcement of a new ICD-10 delay — claiming that pushing the implementation date back a year to October 1, 2015, would undercut the momentum made by current investments — other providers and payers breathed a sigh of relief at being granted extra time for preparation. In spite of this, many healthcare groups are apparently still concerned about being adequately prepared in time for ICD-10, with a new survey determining that readiness and revenue rank among the chief concerns of those industry members.

The survey, which was conducted by the American Health Information Management Association and eHealth Initiative, polled 349 providers, hospitals and stakeholders throughout May and June. Their findings included the following:

• 61 percent anticipate difficulties with entering in new codes for patient encounters
• 57 percent predict problems with workflow, claims processing, management, prepared staff, vendor readiness and overall productivity
• 44 percent worry about patient documentation
• 38 percent believe their revenue will drop off in the first year of ICD-10
• 26 percent have yet to perform an assessment of how ICD-10 will affect their revenue cycles.

While this all may sound like reason enough to panic at the prospect of ICD-10, EHR Intelligence noted that many of the survey's respondents also articulated that these problems were more short-term concerns that, in the long run, would be overshadowed by the coding system's ultimate benefits. For example, 40 percent of providers said they anticipate claims processing to become more accurate and 25 percent claimed that the thousands of new codes offered by ICD-10 would contribute positively to overall patient care. 

To ensure your clinic is best prepared for the move to ICD-10 next year, it's imperative to invest into the best chiropractic EHR software, which will help facilitate a smooth transition with minimal disruptions to workflow and productivity.