The results from The Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI) 2015 ICD-10 Industry Readiness Survey are in. WEDI surveyed payers, providers, and vendors and has identified that only about 20 percent of physician practices surveyed have started or completed external testing and less than 50 percent responded that they were ready or would be ready for Oct. 1, 2015.

“The survey results are based on responses from 621 respondents, consisting of 453 providers, 72 vendors and 96 health plans. This is the eleventh ICD-10 readiness survey WEDI has conducted since 2009, all of which were done in an effort to gain a broad perspective on the readiness status for different sections of the industry, and to gauge how quickly they are progressing towards the Oct. 1, 2015 implementation deadline.”

Some highlights from WEDI’s latest ICD-10 survey include:          

• Physician practice testing and readiness: Only about 20 percent of physician practices have started or completed external testing and less than 50 percent responded that they were ready or would be ready for Oct. 1, 2015.

• Hospital/health system testing and readiness: Almost 75 percent of hospitals and health systems have started or completed external testing. Additionally, nearly 90 percent responded that they were ready or would be ready by the compliance date, while a few were unsure if they would be ready.

• Health plan testing and readiness: Nearly 75 percent of health plans have begun or completed external testing. 40 percent responded that they were already prepared and the remaining 60 percent said they would be ready by October 1.   

• Vendor product development and availability: 75 percent of vendor respondents have fully completed product development and no one responded that their products would not be ready by the compliance date.  

Due to these results, WEDI has sent letters in August to the Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, sharing its survey results and recommendations. WEDI has strongly encouraged the department to continue its communications to promote the need for compliance because of the impact that non-compliance could have on the industry.

WEDI recommendations to HHS included the following:

• HHS should expeditiously provide full transparency regarding the readiness of individual Medicaid agencies by state.
• The recently-announced Ombudsman position should be appointed as soon as possible and WEDI strongly urges CMS to not wait until the compliance deadline to complete this appointment.
• The go-live ICD-10 support plan should include leveraging WEDI’s and CMS’ implementation support program, which already serves as the central source for collecting ICD-10 industry issues and solutions.
• Additional outreach is needed in order to help providers with complying with most recent Local Coverage Determination codes (LCDs).

The state of unpreparedness concerns many in the healthcare industry as claims and reimbursements are dependent on the new ICD-10 coding convention. Education and training is the key to support physician practices and here at Context 4 Healthcare we can help.

Context⁴ Healthcare, Inc. can help you with your ICD-10 training and testing issues. We know that the strength of your revenue cycle performance relies on your ability to focus on coding, documentation, and compliance. Getting paid quickly and correctly relies on accurately translating the language of clinical care into the dialect of claims adjudication. We also know that becoming ICD-10 compliant can happen without turning your business upside down.

For a related Compliance Edge blog article, check out Context 4 Healthcare, Inc. Can Solve Your GEM of an ICD-10 Problem.

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