Lessons Learned from ICD-9 Implementation

When healthcare transitioned to ICD-9 on Oct. 1, 1984, there was still great confusion 18 months later on how to submit the codes. There was great deal of frustration both on the provider side as well as the health plan side. There was also a huge lack of training to prepare the doctors for the transition to ICD-9. As a result, for almost a year, there were large drops in revenue.

I am seeing things now, for ICD-10, that I witnessed back then for ICD-9. A great deal of people have not even started their processes. I think the last figures I saw showed less than a third of the medical population has begun processes to implement ICD-10, which includes the 5010 Readiness Evaluation, the training processes, understanding their vendors’ readiness, etc...