Physicians Not Happy with ICD10 Mandate

13 May 2016

Last year physicians successfully led the charge in opposition to the 2014 deadline and were victorious in getting ICD10 pushed back another year. Physician around the U.S. rallied around the postponing of ICD10 citing a host of potential problems. At the top of the list was the inability of many electronic health record vendors and practice management systems to have their systems ready for ICD10 by the October 2014 deadline.

Other concerns stated by physicians were having the time to train both the doctors and staff on the new ICD10 coding. A direct impact of inaccurate coding would be the denial in insurance payments from the insurance carriers. Even with the set back of one year, physicians state their number one concern going into October 1, 2015 is possibility of insurance claims being rejected due to ICD10 coding. Denial of insurance payments would result in huge cash flow problems amongst physicians. With only four months to go before ICD10 goes into effect, physicians are worried but have no other choice but to comply with this government mandate.

ViewMyHealthRecords.com is the leading healthcare technology company in providing online health record access for patients. Our technology gives patients access to their health records in a secure environment. Physicians that utilize electronic health record systems rely on Viewmyhealthrecords.com to provide online access for patients to their health records.

As the leading provider in online access to electronic health records, ViewMyHealthRecords.com has tested and certified our software as ready for ICD10. Since each diagnosis entered into the patient’s electronic health record is communicated to the patient’s insurance carrier, it is critical for each patient to review their electronic health records online for accuracy. At a minimum, patients should review their health records bi-monthly. Honest mistakes are made each day by physicians and their staff when it comes to selecting diagnosis codes in a computer. It may be that the provider meant to select a specific code but accidentally selected a code just above or below the code that was meant to be selected. In-accurate diagnosis codes can lead to spikes in healthcare premiums for patients.