The ICD-10-PCS And Its Implementation

By Violet Solomon


The International Classification of Disease 10th revision Procedure Coding System is normally abbreviated as ICD-10-PCS. This is a system of medical classification that helps to procedurally give coding to health interventions that the medical professionals may choose. The World Health Organization normally publishes PCS so as to track the international morbidity and the mortality statistics for comparison.

The first digit of this code is used to indicate the section of the medical practice. This can be surgery, administration, monitoring, measuring or many others. The second code is for body system, third for root operation, fourth for body part, the fifth for approach and sixth for the medical devices. The last digit is the qualifying code. Given the importance of the first three characters, they are stored in ICD manual for reference purpose.

The ICD-10 came as a replacement of the ICD-9 and is set to take effect on October 1, 2014 bringing with it a dramatic change in medical and healthcare sector in general. All the players from federal government, state governments, medical professionals and the insurance firms are set to be affected by this new coding system.

While the ICD-10-PCS are used for in-patient procedures and studies, the same cannot be used when it comes to billing of the radiologist professional components. They are also not applicable for procedures and studies concerning out-patients. The implication is that this coding system describes the procedures that are performed on in-patients but the identical procedures performed on out-patients are still described by the original CPT codes.

Even with the transition, a number of players are not converting to ICD-10 codes. In this group are the auto insurance companies, the legal claims and workers comp which prompts hospitals to use a mixture of ICD-9, ICD-10, ICD-10-PCS and CPT codes for the management and billing system. The hospital management system must therefore have ability and knowledge required for automatic conversion of ICD-9 codes to 10 and back, Convert CPT code to ICD-10 or nine and back. This should be done with ease, efficiency and comfort for smooth operations and transition.

Given that the targeted year of full transition (2014) is here with us, you ought to have taken all the necessary steps towards this transition. There are only three alternatives if you are a healthcare player; to upgrade or replace the entire billing management system, outsource your services or opt for retirement.

If you choose the option of upgrading the system as required, there are a few challenges that you need to prepare for as suggested by studies done on countries that have already converted to the new coding system. These include increased time per claim for coders, need to additional staff, concurrent processing of ICD-9, 10 and the new in-patient code, disruption of reimbursements and possible backlog of programming requests.

There are several benefits that come with early compliance such as being able to avoid confusion and delays as all other players seek to comply at last minute. In fact, this is likely to cause system backlogs. The transition to the ICD-10-PCS may not be as smooth as expected especially if the rumors and concerns arising are not fully addressed. The major concern comes from rumors that unspecific codes will be eliminated making it impossible to make claims for the related complications.




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