CMS has begun a series of webinars designed to ease the transition into ICD-10, and the first was held yesterday. Here are some of the basics that they covered:
ICD-10 was approved by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1990 as a revision of ICD-9, which was adopted in 1979. The United States is one of the only countries in the world that hasn’t fully adopted ICD-10 yet; the compliance date for ICD-10 is October 1 of this year. This means that all doctors’ offices must be using ICD-10 codes for information they transmit electronically by the October 1 deadline. For outpatient services, this date refers to Date of Service.
The coding structure for ICD-10 is similar to that of ICD-9; ICD-10 is simply more detailed and more extensive. ICD-10 codes essentially force you to document severity and laterality (left, right, bilateral). One code in ICD-9 can often be translated to multiple codes in ICD-10. For example:
ICD-9
381.01 Acute serous otitis media
ICD-10
H65.00 Acute serous otitis media, unspecified ear
H65.01 Acute serous otitis media, right ear
H65.02 Acute serous otitis media, left ear
H65.03 Acute serous otitis media, bilateral
H65.04 Acute serous otitis media, recurrent, right ear
H65.05 Acute serous otitis media, recurrent, left ear
H65.06 Acute serous otitis media, recurrent, bilateral
H65.07 Acute serous otitis media, recurrent, unspecified ear
This chart, taken directly from the CMS webinar presentation, shows a comparison of the ICD-9 and ICD-10 coding structures:
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The Webinar Updates are just what they sound like: posts to let you know the latest information we’ve learned from attending webinars hosted by government agencies, interoperability workgroups, and other participants in the healthcare chain.