Latest Study Charts Slow ICD-10 Progress

Health care brand consulting, research, and communications firm Aloft Group recently announced the results from their second annual ICD-10 Snapshot Study, which was conducted with almost 200 health care providers across the United States to obtain an understanding of ICD-10 implementation status with the impending October 2014 deadline.

The majority of the study’s respondents (75%) were from community hospitals and the other 25% were from IDN/health care systems, academic medical centers, and physician groups.

The ICD-10 Snapshot Study revealed that despite the implementation deadline being only months away, one out of every two respondents are 25% or less completed in their ICD-10 implementation process. This represented an improvement over 2013 when three of every four respondents indicated that they were 25% or less completed. 

As for the reason for the continued slow progress, 60% stated physician buy-in as their top conversion obstacle. The top obstacle in 2013 was “lack of time” (71%), which was identified as the second top obstacle in the 2014 study (46%).

Thirty-five percent of respondents this year chose “testing” as an obstacle, with 45% indicating they have just started to test, while 38% plan to begin testing in the second quarter of this year. Nine percent don’t plan to test at all.

Clinical documentation was chosen by 74% of respondents as the biggest gap to their ICD-10 conversion plans. 

While the AMA recently indicated that they want the CMS to reconsider the October 2014 deadline, 45% of respondents don’t agree with the AMA’s resistance, 29% are undecided, and 25% do agree with the AMA’s position.

Thirty-six percent of respondents believe their ICD-10 vendors don’t have an adequate schedule in place to ensure they will be ready in time for the deadline, and 26% of participants are frustrated with the lack of guidance their vendors provide.

When asked what they would most like to see more of from their ICD-10 vendors, one-half of respondents stated “the ability to run parallel systems to resolve issues prior to go-live” as their top response, followed by “assistance with a formalized training plan for user training and education to improve physician acclimation.”

“Getting a snapshot in the first quarter of 2014 as compared to last year was interesting as the results revealed that the industry is still behind, but has improved in their readiness,” says Matt Bowen, president and CEO of Aloft Group. “Our purpose for conducting this study was to not only determine how the industry is doing as compared to last year, but also to communicate the opportunity that ICD-10 vendors need to improve the services they provide. With a mere eight months to go, there is still an opportunity for vendors to step in because providers are clearly in need of guidance and support in order to make a successful conversion to ICD-10 by October.” 

Source: Aloft Group