Despite ICD-10 challenges, many providers optimistic they'll meet deadline

With one month left until healthcare organizations must begin using ICD-10, 57 percent of respondents to a recent survey say they still are not on track to meet the Oct. 1 deadline. Still, 85 percent say they'll be ready on time, according to healthcare billing company Navicure.

Forty-three percent of organizations responding to the survey, meanwhile, say they are on track to meet the deadline.

About 6 percent of those currently not ready say they have not even started to prepare. Physician practices, especially, have said previously that they continue to struggle with implementation.

Less than 50 percent of physician practices responding to a June Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange survey said they would be ready for the new code set, compared to 90 percent of hospitals and health systems.

More than half (56 percent) of the respondents to the Navicure survey cited impact on revenue and/or cash flow as their main worry. That concern hasn't changed much since the beginning of the year when 59 percent saw it as a possible issue.

Even with such concerns, 35 percent of respondents said they had not adjusted their revenue cycle for ICD-10, according to the report.

In addition, despite an announcement from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services that it will not deny claims for non-specific ICD-10 codes for certain providers, 74 percent of the survey's respondents said they still plan to use as specific codes as possible.

Source: fiercehealthit.com