Earlier this week, it was reported that six Congressional leaders had sent a letter to the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services (CMS), asking for some clarity on issues pertaining to the ICD-10 delay. They aren't the only ones, either. Many groups within the healthcare industry — running the gamut of payers, vendors, providers and stakeholders — still have plenty of questions of their own about best implementation practices to ensure that by October 1, 2015, they will be able to adopt ICD-10 with minimal, if any, disruption to their workflow. As CMS has not been particularly forthcoming about these potential difficulties, Congress is asking the federal agency directly.

According to industry news source Government Health IT, here are the three primary questions Congress wants answered by CMS:

• What is being done to help the healthcare industry prepare for ICD-10?
• What is the current status of Medicare and Medicaid's transition to ICD-10?
• Why did CMS delay end-to-testing to next year and how does it plan to carry out this process?

The source was left to speculate as to whether or not these questions would be resolved in a single hearing or could span multiple sessions. Ideally, the sooner these questions are resolved, the better for everyone. While ICD-10 looks to help improve patient care experiences, reduce related costs and streamline recordkeeping duties, installing and learning how to use a system containing tens of thousands of new codes is no easy feat, and readiness procedures should be made available as soon as possible.

Utilizing chiropractic EHR software can help ensure that your practice will be up-to-speed when the time comes to implement ICD-10, allowing for proper adoption of the new coding system without negatively impacting workflow.