Application Of Icd 9 And Start Using Icd 10 - 1640 Words

Eloy Quesada As of October 1, 2015, all healthcare providers will be required to stop using ICD-9 and start using ICD-10. Switching over to the more in depth system of ICD-10 will require adjustments from large healthcare providers, like hospitals, as well as small practices run by doctors in order to successfully adapt. Some will have to adjust more than others. While hospitals are bigger and more complex, they will have an easier time adjusting to ICD-10 than small practices, which are operated by a single physician or a group of physicians. ICD stands for International Classification of Diseases and is used by countries all over the world as a standard diagnostic tool. ICD has many uses throughout the health industry. For the most part†¦show more content†¦The reason for the need of all these extra details is because not only does it increase accuracy in medical records but it also allows doctors to administer better patient care. Using ICD-10 for reimbursement purposes will also be a lot more efficient and cost-effective. With ICD-9’s broad classification system some procedures, associated with certain codes, would be unnecessary for specific patients. However, with ICD-10 because the codes are so specific, procedures associated with those codes will all be necessary for further diagnoses and no procedure will go to waste. As necessary as ICD-10 is, smaller practices that only have a few physicians on staff will have more of a difficult time integrating the system than larger organizations. The reason b eing that larger healthcare organizations tend to have coders. Coders are individuals who hardly ever have contact with patients but they are important in the sense that they are the ones that input the ICD codes into patients’ medical records. Without coders, physicians would have to be the ones to input the ICD codes into the patients’ medical record. Luckily physicians at hospitals and other large health organizations do not need to do this. Unfortunately, physicians at smaller organizations do not have coders at their disposal and they are the ones that enter the ICD codes. How does this pose a problem for the physician or