ICD-10

ICD-10 is diagnostic coding system implemented by the World Health Organization in 1993 to replace ICD-9. Currently, almost every healthcare professional across the globe uses the ICD-10 system with the exception of providers in the United States, which have yet to make the transition to ICD-10. Moving to ICD-10 will allow for better analysis of disease patterns and treatment outcomes that can advance medical care, helping to streamline claims submissions and making initial claims much easier for payers to understand.

Anyone who is qualified to code ICD-9 should be able to easily make the transition to ICD-10 as both systems are quite similar. However, many improvement have been made to the ICD-10 system necessitating formal training and certification processes for current and prospective coders. Whether students are new or currently working in the medical industry, everyone will be affected by the new coding system, which will go from 13,000 to 68,000 codes. The impact of this shift is substantial. Not only does the new code set include five times as many codes as the ICD-9 code set, the different arrangement of codes will require more documentation, revised forms, retraining of staff and physicians, and changes to software and other information technology. Changes in reimbursement patterns may also result from the increased specificity of the new code set. The compliance date for practices to implement both ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS is October 1, 2014.

The ICD-10 course provides students with an overview of the ICD-10 for both diagnosis and procedure coding. The course will cover the transition from ICD-9 to ICD-10 and review the changes and updates. Students will learn the new codes, the structure, and nature of the characters. They will also learn how to use the appropriate reference manuals and guides to create diagnosis codes from the ICD-10-CM and procedure codes from the ICD-10-PCS.

The ICD-10 course will address the following primary course objectives:

• Describe the purpose of ICD-10
• Compare ICD-10 to ICD-9
• Explain the functions, processes, and procedures of diagnostic coding
• Describe procedural coding
• Analyze electronic coding tools
• Practice coding for a variety of purposes and settings
• Discuss the future of coding