Dive Brief:
- A newly-formed consortium featuring Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, Humana and several other payers are working together on strategies to help smaller healthcare providers get ready for ICD-10, which is less than a year away.
- The consortium's short-term plan is to meet with healthcare provider specialty groups (such as cardiology or pediatrics) to help them focus on learning how to translate the ICD-9 codes they submit most often into ICD-10 codes.
- "The consortium approach is in response to concerns raised in testimony on Capitol Hill at recent NCVHS hearings that payers may not be able to test with a large number of providers," said Sid Hebert, director of the ICD-10 implementation team at Humana. "This approach allows for interested providers to evaluate their coding proficiency with real-world examples, keyed to specialties, through a dynamic interchange with cooperating payers."
Dive Insight:
The consortium's approach is nothing new, as there is a lot of information and ICD-10 crosswalks (or data maps) available. But because ICD-10 is a beast, even for seasoned coders, providers can use all the help they can get. Just don't expect CMS to push back the implementation date again, nice as that would be for many!