Engaging doctors in the move to ICD-10

One of the toughest challenges in the transition to ICD-10 is engaging physicians in the process and building a collaborative infrastructure. That’s the focus of the education session, Preparing and motivating physicians for the ICD-10 challenge, on Sunday, June 16, at the Healthcare Financial Management Association’s ANI 2013 conference in Orlando, Fla. 

In designing education that is meaningful for physicians it is important to get right to the point of what physicians need to do and make ICD-10 relevant to them, said Paul Weygandt, MD, vice president, physician services, J.A. Thomas & Associates, a Nuance company. Weygandt will jointly present the session with Victor Freeman, MD, regional medical director at J.A. Thomas & Associates.

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“Don’t waste their time,” he said. Explaining to doctors that if they don’t have the necessary processes and infrastructure in place for Oct. 1, 2014 their revenue will cease is also “highly motivating,” he added.

Physicians need education models that are not disruptive to their practice and provide them with the information they need in a very collaborative manner, Weygandt said.

The biggest fear around the transition to ICD-10 is disruption of workflow so it’s also important to talk with physicians about working collaboratively and consistently with documentation specialists and coders to build the necessary infrastructure to get it right the first time and to use technology to be supportive and assistive during the transition, Weygandt said.

And while ICD-10 is extremely difficult for coders because of the amount of knowledge and terminology that they have to acquire, “physicians already have that, or they couldn’t sustain their clinical practice,” Weygandt said.

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Many of the new specialty codes in ICD-10 have been used by physicians for years, but coders didn’t have access to them in the available code sets.

“That’s one of the big areas of engagement – pointing out to physicians that it is moving our coding system into the modern era, even catching up with the physician,” he said.