“And when clinical and operational efficiency suffers on account of whatsoever reason, it gets reflected in terms of dwindling revenues. As if this cause and relationship is not enough, physician practices will have to contend with direct expenditure associated with sourcing learning materials. The combined effect of these two factors would doubly affect their revenues and financial equation.”

1. http://www.medicalbillersandcoders.com
End to End Medical Billing Solutions
Are physician practices in for a spell of revenue loss during ICD-10 transition?
“And when clinical and operational efficiency suffers on account of whatsoever reason, it gets reflected in
terms of dwindling revenues. As if this cause and relationship is not enough, physician practices will have
to contend with direct expenditure associated with sourcing learning materials. The combined effect of
these two factors would doubly affect their revenues and financial equation.”
While most of the physician practices are earnestly making arrangements for transition to ICD-10 and
HIPAA-5010 compliant clinical data management, there seems to be an undercurrent of probable revenue
loss that these practices will have to cope with during their course of ICD-10 transition. Such apprehension
gets founded mainly on the premise of training and technology needs of ICD-10 and HIPAA 5010 compliant
clinical and operational management being on the heavier side. Not discounting ICD-10’s potential to be
the promoter of clinical and operational efficiency in the long-run, there seems to be an ounce of truth in
physicians’ apprehension of it being costly in the initial or transition phase.
ICD-10, which in a distinctive deviation from its predecessor ICD-09, happens to be a domain of more than
100,000 new alphanumeric procedure and diagnosis codes. It is quite a challenge not only to physicians but
also support staff for medical billing practices. When you are suddenly asked to decipher and learn coding
in such gigantic proportions it is quite natural that your operational efficiency is going to suffer till such
time when you are actually done with the task of becoming familiarized with the new coding manual. And
when clinical and operational efficiency suffers on account of whatsoever reason, it gets reflected in terms
of dwindling revenues. As if this cause and relationship is not enough, physician practices will have to
contend with direct expenditure associated with sourcing learning materials. The combined effect of these
two factors would doubly affect their revenues and financial equation.
More than the expenditure associated with learning materials for ICD-10, it is the implementation of
HIPAA-5010 (seen as the operational platform for ICD-10), which is going to add up to the woes of revenue
loss. The HIPAA-5010 EHR platforms, (comprising automated clinical and operational management
software), despite their credible performance have grown to be costlier than their earlier versions. And,
even if physician practices somehow manage to source funds for upgraded versions of EHR platforms,
there is always going to be the concern of orienting the internal staff to a more demanding EHR
mechanism. Therefore, till such time when physician practices are able to demonstrate the requisite
efficiency for augmenting medical billing reimbursements in ICD-10 and HIPAA-5010 regime, they will have
to contend with the inevitable revenue loss. Technically, they will have to wait for the time when they
actually break-even, before considering a positive rate of return (ROI) on investments done on ICD-10
clinical and operational requirements.
While it is inevitable for physician practices to pass through the imminent revenue-loss stage, they can still
try to contain the margin as far as possible through an alternative course of action: outsourcing their billing
www.medicalbillersandcoders.com
Copyright ©-2011 M.D.C.P. All Rights Reserved.
Page 1 of 2

2. http://www.medicalbillersandcoders.com
End to End Medical Billing Solutions
and coding functions to credible medical billing companies. These medical billing companies – by virtue of
being service providers to voluminous clients – carry the tag of economies of large scale operations while
also being adept at offering customized solutions in sync with physician practices’ individualistic needs.
Medicalbillersandcoders.com (www.medicalbillersandcoders.com), the largest consortium of medical
billers and coders with credible competence in offering ICD-10 implementation strategies for small as well
as large medical practice settings, may well be your preferential recourse to alternative course of ICD-10
transition.
www.medicalbillersandcoders.com
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