ICD-10 Facts and Myths
Good morning:
Here are the facts. The proficiency exam is not a recertification exam. This is to measure your ICD-10 proficiency. You will have between October 1 2012 until September 30, 2014 to successfully complete your proficiency exam to maintain certification. It is true every certified coder must take this exam. It is online, timed, and you can use any resource at your disposal. Does this sound like a certification exam? I think not. There is no certification for ICD-10. The cost will be less than paying to earn CEU's.
Fact: It is too early to learn the codes. If you learn them today will you remember them in 2013? The AAPC has 8 regional conferences planned for 2013 with 16 specialties covered for training on ICD-10. We will also have workshops, webinars, and distance learning. We are working hard to make certain our coders have what they need. If you want to compare AAPC to AHIMA of which some of you have. Since I am also an AHIMA certified coder I know what AHIMA requires which is:
RHIT – 6 CEUs
RHIA – 6 CEUs
CCS-P – 12 CEUs
CCS – 18 CEUs
CCA – 18 CEUs
Now keep in mind, AHIMA will not offer the education for free. There is a charge. If you compare AAPC's costs for webinars, workshops, conferences, etc, you will see that our costs are much lower.
For example if you are an AHIMA member the webinar price currently for some webinars range from $179 to $229. Who knows what the costs will be in 2013. If you want to take the AHIMA course now it is very expensive and even if you are a trainer planning to train on ICD-10 it is not time to start training yet. The codes are still in draft format as well as the guidelines. We should be working on Implementation right now. I encourage all of you to begin thinking more about what we need to do to get ready than the coding. It is more than a systems or software upgrade.
I encourage all of you to read every article you can on ICD-10. AHIMA does have some good resources and so does AAPC. Go to the CMS website and read information on their website. There web address is
http://www.cms.hhs.gov/ICD10.
Lastly in April AAPC along with sponsorship from CMS is offering a code-a-thon on ICD-10. This will be the forum to get your questions answered by the experts. We don't have a date yet, but it will be held after the AAPC conference in late April. We will post the date on the AAPC website and the ICD-10 forum when more information is available.
Thanks,
Deb Grider
Deborah Grider, CPC, CPC-H, CPC-I, CPC-P, CPMA, CEMC, COBGC, CPCD, CCS-P
President & CEO
AAPC
2480 South 3850 West, Suite B
Salt Lake City, Utah 84120
https://www.aapc.com
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