What with many vendors and providers behind schedule on both HIPAA 5010 and ICD-10, Computer Sciences Corp. published a report offering advice on creating a balanced approach to migration and implementation.
“Successful migration plans for ICD-10 will address the requirement in an integrated enterprise-side fashion. The overall plan will balance industry deadlines, internal business requirements, trading partner readiness and vendor schedules,” CSC's report explains. “The critical path may not address every contingency, but will reflect business priorities and resource availability.”
To help providers get started, then, here are three key questions:
1. How will the application, business process, or system process address bi-directional crosswalks between ICD-9 and ICD-10? “It's possible that some will propose an embedded or proprietary solutions, while other will delegate the responsibility for crosswalk and mapping tools to the user organization,” the report states.
[Related podcast: Proper planning for ICD-10 training. See also: 5 Factors critical to HIPAA 5010, ICD-10 success.]
2. What's your migration and implementation strategy? The report continues that organizations not currently on the latest release of an applications will have other issues associated with upgrading the application that just ICD-10.
3. When will each component of the migration be available for implementation? Creating a schedule is critical and to do that providers will need to know when application updates will be delivered and, subsequently, when they can start testing.
Timing, of course, is another critical factor as industry bodies and consultancies both maintain that providers should at least have assessments underway today.
“The fact remains that organizations that have not begun their ICD-10 remediation efforts are at risk of missing the current deadlines,” CSC's report continues. “What's equally clear is that the deadlines are unlikely to be adjusted again.”
Tom Sullivan blogs regularly at ICD10Watch.com.
