With less than a month away from the nationwide implementation of ICD-10, it’s important to be thoroughly prepared. Perhaps one of the greatest ways to plan for a perfect implementation is to take a look at the history of ICD-10 around the world.

(Save Money: Assess Your Medical Revenue Cycle Before ICD-10)

In 1998-1999, Australia implemented ICD-10. Their approach to the drastic coding change was to stagger the exertion slowly, by state, over the course of a year. For this reason, and a few others, Australia’s implementation is considered to be a little less painful, but there are still many things we can learn from their successes.

Education

Australia’s greatest success was their education efforts. ICD-10 professionals took the time to meet with coders, medical coding companies, healthcare professionals, and analysts to create exceptional educational materials for the country to review prior to implementation.

These efforts began a year and a half ahead of time and are often credited to a fast return time to normal coding production. In fact, Australia conducted a study to evaluate production levels and found a return to normal coding production speeds within 12-16 weeks. That’s quite an impressive speed for such a major shift in coding.

Assessing

Another great tactic many Australian medical coding companies attribute to their ICD-10 success was the extensive assessments they conducted before and after implementation.

Prior to starting ICD-10, consultants throughout Australia studied the processes of clinicians use of ICD-9 to identify the already-weak areas of coding. This helped determine who needed more help than others, and how soon to begin training in what areas.

Following implementation, Australia continued to conduct studies and surveys on health care practices. These surveys had a purpose of targeting areas struggling with workflow related issues, and finding areas that needed extra education efforts to bring them up to speed.

One final notable assessment Australia used was surveying coders in order to gain their feedback and resolve issues. This also sparked the addition of specialized training workshops that helped coders in specialized fields reach normal production levels as quickly as coders in more general practices.

Anticipation

Anticipation is clearly the key take away from Australia’s ICD-10 implementation. They anticipated a significant learning curve and gave the country a lengthy period of time to get the proper education. They anticipated certain areas of practice would need more hands-on help than others, and prepared to locate these areas by constructing surveys and assessments.

What else can be anticipated? Cost. The Australian National Centre for Classification in Health revealed that their implementation cost around $10.5 million. The cost included the money used in training and the money lost due to productivity levels. By anticipating around the same level of costs in the U.S, you can prepare by gaining an extra line of credit from the bank.

Unfortunately, ICD-10 coding implementation is around the corner, and if you have not already been preparing for the huge change, you might find your practice falling behind.

The good news? Medical coding companies across America have been training for a long time and are prepared to help you.

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