Majority of hospitals seeking CDI partners for ICD-10 implementation

Most hospitals will be working with a CDI partner to ensure proper implementation of ICD-10.

Most hospitals will be working with a CDI partner to ensure proper implementation of ICD-10.

Four months ago, Congress and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced a year-long delay for the implementation of ICD-10, effectively pushing back this start date to October 1, 2015. Back then, healthcare providers across the board were breathing a sigh of relief at being granted an extra 12 months to ramp up efforts for accommodating the new coding language as part of their workflow. But time is flying by quickly, and many of these organizations are recognizing the importance of enlisting the help of a clinical documentation improvement (CDI) partner to ensure their chiropractic EHR needs are brought up-to-date in time for next year.

In fact, that's exactly what most hospitals in the United States are doing. According to EHR Intelligence, about 71 percent of U.S. hospitals plan to collaborate with a CDI partner by next October to help make the adjustments needed for adequately adopting ICD-10. The source adds that 25 percent of hospitals have already taken steps to engage CDI partnerships that will help facilitate a successful transition from ICD-9 to ICD-10 over the following year.

"Transitioning to ICD-10 is a complicated process and hospitals are leaning on the expertise and successes of outsourcing vendors," Doug Brown, Manager Partner for Black Book, told EHR Intelligence. "We still operate in an ICD-9 world, complicated by EHR implementations, value-based reimbursement models, compliance issues and optimizing reimbursement; a perfect storm from which outsourcers have the expertise to shield their clients."

Investing into chiropractic EHR software provided by another vendor can help ensure that your practice is ready to implement ICD-10 next October, all without incurring any impediments to your day-to-day workflow.

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