It's too early to tell how ICD-10 delay will impact budgets

Whether Congress pushing back the ICD-10 deadline will stall projects or healthcare organizations continue trekking forward is bound to be a matter of some debate for the foreseeable future.

Indeed, the results of a new survey conducted by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (Healthcare Finance News’ parent company) determined that for 66 percent of the 643 respondents, it’s still too early to tell how the delay will influence their budgets for the ICD-10 conversion.

A little more than 5 percent of the remaining respondents indicated they are already planning to allocate more money to keep the project alive, while 9 percent are essentially going to backburner the project until this time next year. The last 19 percent expect to have the same total budget and that they’ll have to stretch that money even further.

Survey participants were healthcare professionals who had registered prior to news of the implementation delay for a joint webinar on ICD-10 arranged by HIMSS and CMS.

Among survey participants, 38 percent indicated that they have rescheduled preparation plans in light of Congress pushing ICD-10 back via the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014, signed into law on April 1, and 16 percent answering that they have cancelled plans until a firm schedule is announced.

Nearly 20 percent indicated they haven’t yet established any ICD-10 plans, while only 26 percent consider themselves well prepared.

The survey also asked participants if the implementation is causing them to change plans for ICD-10 staff training.

Among respondents, 44 percent have rescheduled training schedules and nearly 20 percent cancelled them until a firm deadline is announced. On the flip side are the 21 percent who have yet to plan for ICD-10 training and the 15 percent saying they are fully trained.

Just because some healthcare organizations are starting to scale back on ICD-10 plans and training don't necessarily reflect their preference for complying with the code set.

While 23 percent of survey respondents said they would rather stick with ICD-9, and 8 percent said they would prefer to move ICD-10 further down the road, more than 67 percent indicated that they would rather make the transition either sooner than or during October 2015.

Now it’s hurry up and wait for CMS to reveal the new deadline.