During June 2013, an in-depth survey was conducted by Qualitest regarding the testing aspects associated with the oncoming ICD-10 classification change. The survey included over 300 senior level IT, revenue management, and medical coding professionals that have described themselves as “directly involved with ICD-10 remediation efforts.” Organizations surveyed were split evenly between small-, mid-, and large-size medical organizations, and were mostly represented by senior-level IT professionals.

Main Findings

  • The majority of respondents have either completed their ICD-10 assessment or are currently in the process of running it.
  • 75% have not yet begun ICD-10 testing, but also expect testing to take between 11-16 months, illustrating the importance of starting as soon as possible and that there is a risk associated with waiting any longer to do so.
  • For areas which testing will realistically cover, most responders indicated they were comfortable with the ability of their testing to verify their technology stack and their internal coder readiness but indicated concern with the ability of testing to cover functional integration with key trade partners and revenue impact testing. To determine this, we asked a multi-choice question about what they expected would be “covered well,” and determined that the higher the number, the less concerned most were.
  • Those planning to use GEMs or cross-walks for generating test data were most worried about incorrect mapping or the high cost of such tools (combined, about 80% of respondents).
  • Most organization are either planning to code their own data, or do not know how they will source the data they will use in their database (with the third most popular item being acquiring a tailored database).
  • Half the organizations are planning on coding their own data, but know that the main problem with this is incorrect coding and the availability of the coded test data, which both would delay the testing effort.
  • Concerning acquiring a tailored database of dual-coded medical records, 44% feared the additional costs of attaining such a system (though they recognized the benefit of doing so), with 32% concerned with the accuracy of the in-house coders who will be using the system.