Wiki ICD-10 and workers' comp

[bryn2091]

I perform medical and hospital coding reviews for a workers comp risk manager. We are hearing that the ICD-10 transition won't affect workers comp. How is this possible, considering that providers will have to make the transition elsewhere in their practices? It seems unreasonable to expect providers to maintain crosswalks just for WC. If we need to do it, I need something to motivate our IT contractors to prepare, as they are now pretty complacent.

 

[mitchellde]

Work comp is a non HIPAA payer. Therefore they are not required to follow HIPAA rules and regs. The adoption of ICD-10 CM is a HIPAA rule. Work comp is a State payer system and the adoption of ICD-10 CM will vary state by state. Work comp can also chose which year version of CPT they use or is rare that any atate's work comp uses the current year many are aeveral years behind.