Dive Brief:
- In preparation for the Oct. 1, 2014 deadline for ICD-10 implementation, hospitals and health systems are preparing and budgeting for each stage of the conversion, with many rolling out their implementation well ahead of the deadline.
- For example, Long Beach, Calif.-based MemorialCare Health System -- a six-hospital institution with fiscal year 2012 revenues of $1.8 billion -- is budgeting for five areas related to ICD-10, including computer-assisted coding, comprehensive clinical documentation improvement, HIM training and the system-wide IT component.By February, the system should be coding everything in ICD-10, according to CFO Karen Testman.
- Despite its extensive planning and training efforts, MemorialCare still expects to lose money on the ICD-10 conversion. "There is no question as we look at our 10 year plan that our margins will go down," Testman tells Health Leaders.
Dive Insight:
If a system like MemorialCare, which is planning carefully to meet the organizational and staffing challenges of ICD-10, still expects to lose money on it for many years to come, one can only imagine the impact of the conversion on hospitals that don't prepare sufficiently. The ICD-10 deadline is a ticking time bomb, and hospitals that aren't well into preparations already will be very, very sorry later.