Healthcare is an enormously complex endeavor and it has gotten more complex than ever imagined with the advent of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). PPACA has put a lot of balls into the air; one of the lesser known side effects is labeled “ICD-9/10 Conversion.” While the recent focus has been on the big issues with Obamacare, the ICD-9/10 upgrade is significant because it hits at how medical procedures are labeled and, more importantly, how they are compensated.
Imagine the shift that would be required if, instead of speaking the patient’s language, all doctors were required to speak Klingon beginning October 1, 2014. Not only would patient interaction be impacted, but coding, billing and reimbursement would be thrown into a tailspin. As part of PPACA, the entire health care industry is required to change the language they use to communicate diagnoses and billing, from ICD-9 to ICD-10 diagnosis language. Compared to ICD-9, ICD-10:
