Pathology/Lab Coding Alert

Start planning now for staff training. If you hoped that the temporary White House halt to pending regulation meant youd get an extension to the proposed ICD-10 implementation date of Oct. 1, 2013,youre out of luck. Following the required regulatory review, CMS announced March 5 that the ICD-10 effective date remains Oct. 1, 2013, and that CMS will not reopen the commentperiod. Well help you get ready with our experts introduction to the code set and advice for timely training. Do this: Its not too early to start implementation planning and preparation -- and to take advantage of the lead time, says Sue Bowman, RHIA, CCS, director of coding policy and compliance with American Health Information Management Association. Know Key Differences Between ICD-9 and ICD-10 The biggest change youll need to cope with is sheer numbers -- ICD-10-CM has over 155,000 codes compared to ICD-9-CM which has 17,000 codes. Here are [...]