ICD-10 Madness by Pat Conrad MD
“Really, I probably live in a world of 140 codes.”
AAFP President Robert Wergin, M.D. explaining that patients will not see significant differences in their care when ICD-10 kicks in.
Editor’s Note: “Hey, Wergy, what world do you live in?”
One of those codes must be F22
hey, guys and gals ! welcome back my friends to the show that never ends . . . better living through technology !! and then the easter bunny is coming to color all my eggs !
Like most younger family practitioners I’ve met, he probably refers out most of his complicated cases so he can spend more time on his computer and medical politics! Well, maybe he won’t have to use the code for getting hit by a falling spacecraft…
I hate to say it, but I agree with Wergin that most patients won’t see a difference. Patients may notice some minor changes, particularly in the area of billing (which most of them don’t understand anyway), but day-to-day performance of patient care won’t change much.
After worrying about ICD-10 for years, so far it has been just a minor annoyance. And after all the crap EMR’s have received I have to say my EMR (Amazing Charts) did a tremendous job implementing ICD-10. For the most part it has been very easy.
Now there are some caveats – we actually haven’t sent in the bills yet and there is some concern whether insurance companies are going to be ready for this. I’ve heard reports that some companies are still asking for ICD-9 and if that’s the case will cause a mess with payments inevitably delayed. The vaccine codes have been problematic and we’ll have to see how we get reimbursed. And if a FP doc Wergin is living in a world of 140 codes he doesn’t have much of a practice. I bet I will go over 140 codes in the first week or two.
Finally, although I agree with Wergin’s comment that still doesn’t mean that ICD-10 will improve patient care one iota. It won’t. Ultimately it’s just another unfunded mandate that lets the government pretend they’re improving things.