Despite facing its third, and perhaps most frustrating, delay yet, ICD-10 still has plenty of positive changes to offer the healthcare industry — as long as clinics and practices are ready for the transition.

This is according to the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), which convened an ICD-10 Summit last April where stakeholders expressed both concerns and optimism for the new coding system. Although the meeting is three months old, the reactions among its attendees were just recently published by EHR Intelligence, which noted that mixed feelings surrounding the latest ICD-10 delay have bred a higher degree of skepticism that the system's proponents will have to overcome by shedding light on the promised positive repercussions. These include added benefits for billing purposes and improved patient care experiences.

At the same time, these benefits can only really be achieved if vendors and healthcare groups work together to ensure that clinical documentation, staff education and software testing have all been thoroughly completed in time for the October 1, 2015, deadline.

"There is a risk that an extension in the ICD-10 compliance date will not ensure widespread industry readiness," writes Meryl Bloomrosen, Anne Zender and Sue Bowman of the AHIMA. "As has been observed with previous delays in ICD-10 implementation, extra time does not necessarily guarantee that all entities will achieve readiness by the new compliance date. There are concerns that rather than using extra time to their advantage, entities that have been consistently been behind in preparedness may continue to lag behind."

Ensuring that your practice's chiropractic EHR software is up-to-date can help alleviate these worries and offer a smooth transition, yielding all of the benefits of ICD-10 without any disruptions to daily workflow.