The ongoing changes to the ICD-10 deadline have left physicians deviating from their plans to implement the new diagnostic codes.
The deadline, once set for 2013, was shifted to October 2014, with many physicians still left behind the timeline, causing it to act as a red herring.
A survey taken by the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange has revealed that around 80% of physicians are far behind the timeline and are likely to fail in completing the required coding changes at their practices before October 2014.
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The survey also concluded that vendors were also lagging behind in developing the right ICD-10 ready products with 40% vendors revealing that they would not have a finished product by the deadline in October 2014 and 20% of the vendors stating that they had made half the progress needed to make their product ICD-10 ready.
Speaking about the survey, the Chairman of the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange, Jim Daley said, “All industry segments appear to have made some progress since February 2013, but have not gained sufficient ground to remove concern over meeting the Oct. 1, 2014 compliance deadline … unless all segments move quickly forward with their implementation efforts, there will be significant disruption.”
The changes in the deadline for ICD-10 will only lead to physicians having a non-serious attitude about its implementation. It will further disconnect them from their vendors and leave little room for trust with the government.
Obamacare needs to be more stringent in the way it deals with such issues. It needs to set an example by setting a deadline and then sticking to it for the physicians to take it seriously. Otherwise, it will lose the trust it has taken years to develop.
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