Congress forced every healthcare organization to adjust their ICD-10 plans this month, and the American Health Information Management Association was no exception.
The Chicago-based association for medical-records professionals had its long-scheduled ICD-10 summit set for April 22-23 in Washington, with an agenda focused on helping coders in what was to be the final six months before the scheduled Oct. 1 conversion to the complex new coding system.
But on April 1, President Barack Obama signed a bill temporarily patching the Medicare sustainable growth-rate formula for paying doctors and delaying the ICD-10 compliance date until at least Oct. 1, 2015.
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society had touted the summit saying: “With the ICD-10 compliance deadline just months away, it is more critical than ever for the healthcare industry to be prepared to effectively manage the transition.” Now the rewritten AHIMA blurb says attendees will “hear the latest information on the ICD-10-CM/PCS delay and how this delay has affected other organizations' implementation planning and preparation.”
Conference speakers are adjusting their slides and talking points, said Deborah Green, AHIMA's executive vice president. Other than that, the conference is “moving ahead as planned,” she said. Well, not exactly.
AHIMA also is making other adjustments. “We are reprinting ICD-9 code books to make sure they have enough supply (and) we are reinvigorating an ICD-9 online course,” Green said.
“We have to deal with the fact that it is ICD-9 today,” Green lamented. “Until we have a new date, we have to commit to not testing students on anything but ICD-9 until 10 is a reality.”
Follow Joseph Conn on Twitter: @MHJConn
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