E-News Exclusive

ICD-10 Vendor Applications Continue to Slip Into 2014
By Kerry Martin

Since the final ICD-10 rule was published in August 2012, 80 product vendors have reported protracted release dates into 2014, affecting more than 2,000 hospitals. In light of the decision to move the ICD-10 implementation deadline to October 1, 2014, on average, 41% of ICD-10–impacted vendors, when resurveyed, have extended their release dates, according to Korey Jorgensen, VitalWare vendor services director. VitalWare currently is tracking for its clients release dates and versioning on more than 700 ICD-10–impacted vendor applications through the VitalView Vendor Management application.

A more alarming statistic from this survey is that 35% of the 80 vendor products releasing in 2014 are scheduled to release in the fourth quarter—on or after the mandated compliance date. So it’s imperative for hospital chief information officers (CIOs) to have a contingency plan for implementing and testing.

Facilities should stay abreast of when their vendors will be releasing their ICD-10–compliant versions. Impacting almost every business process and system utilized by health care providers and health plans, the planning and coordination of vendor upgrades to accommodate ICD-10 will be an essential element in a successful transition. End-to-end testing of systems will take time—up to 12 months depending on an operation’s system interdependence and complexities.

In an ICD-10 news update, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) advised providers to schedule two crucial ICD-10 transition milestones relative to 2013 ICD-10 transition activities. They suggested that testing events should have begun on April 1, 2013, and include testing ICD-10 codes and systems with coding, billing, and clinical staff. To begin testing systems, they would need to be ICD-10 compliant, meaning any upgrades or updates will need to be installed by this point.

On October 1, 2013, ICD-10 testing with business trading partners such as payers, clearinghouses, and billing services should commence, according to the CMS-recommended ICD-10 transition activities. Testing with payers, clearinghouses, and billing services will require providers to be able to produce and receive electronic data interchange (EDI) transactions with ICD-10 codes.

Thanks to changing development schedules, vendors should be contacted and resurveyed on a regular basis—no less than every 60 days—to ensure schedules for installation and testing remain in sync and on track. Jorgensen reports that through continuous surveying of vendors, survey responses with protracted vendor release dates increased 8% from November 2012 to December, to 44% of returned surveys indicating changed milestone dates. Also noted within several vendor survey responses was the suggestion of an initial “keystone” release with limited ICD-10 functionality prior to the compliance deadline. However, additional updates for full functionality would be released subsequently and not necessarily prior to October 1, 2014.

Vendors such as VitalWare offer vendor and payer management tools and services to assist in the tracking and reporting of ICD-10 readiness. When evaluating the functionality in available solutions, consider a tool that will give the most flexibility in reporting not only vendor and payer readiness but also coordinated organizational readiness. Other functionality to consider includes e-mail alerts notifying users when vendor milestone dates are delayed, missed, or met; the ability to customize displays and content to fit organizational needs; the capability to build and monitor internal projects; and a tool that will withstand ICD-10 implementation as a vendor and payer management solution.

The transition to ICD-10 is far more than an HIM coding change. Vendors play an essential role in supporting health care delivery; the success of an organization’s ICD-10 transition will depend heavily on how well the vendor performs. Hospital CIOs have the right and responsibility to know—transparency is key.

ICD-10–affected products, pending release dates by quarter

 

Ongoing surveys facilitate IT planning without IT departments using resources to track down information from all vendors.

— Kerry Martin is CEO and founder of VitalWare.