ICD-10 Transition Readiness

As the United States fast approaches the ICD-10 implementation date of October 2013, healthcare providers must begin preparations for this dramatic change. With more than five times the number of diagnostic and procedure codes, ICD-10 allows more specific disease and treatment identification, and better metrics for funding and research. The ICD-10 transition is a significant undertaking for providers, payers and system vendors, affecting both the clinical and business sides of healthcare. Timely compliance and billing will require access to trained and experienced coders, health information management professionals, managers, IT specialists, each experienced with the new standard.

Salumatics is your ICD-10 expert. We've been through it before. We know how.

Salumatics offers over ten years experience in ICD-10 coding/abstracting and data quality assurance. Whether it is short-term coding backlogs or long-term outsourced services, our staff of credentialed and experienced ICD-10 coders can reduce or eliminate the anticipated challenges of human resource availability, productivity, and the risk of delays to the billing cycle.

Like many other countries, Canada converted to ICD-10 coding standards a decade ago. The transition triggered long term challenges for senior hospital executives. A significant percentage of older coders chose not to upgrade their training and took early retirement; training consumed many hours of coders time and budget dollars; coding complexity became greater and productivity went down. Cumulatively these factors created a human resource challenge and subsequently critical delays in coded data submissions and billing, with significant financial risk and administrative impact on hospital systems.

While computer-assisted coding can add some efficiencies to the coding process, healthcare organizations seeking to capture the complexity, costs and resources utilized by their patient populations will need to rely on trained and certified health information professionals to perform and manage this critical function.

By engaging Salumatics, our clients eliminate uncertainty relating to recruitment, retention, supervision, training, overtime or deadlines. Overall data quality standards are higher, costs are predictable and contained, and submission schedules for tracking and billing purposes are met.

With consistent and accurate coding performed by an experienced group of Health Information Professionals, direct data entry into your existing coding and abstraction software using state of the art remote access technology, and guaranteed turnaround times, Salumatics can eliminate your short-term and long-term risk.

CONTAIN COSTS BY OUTSOURCING CODING

Salumatics provides certified coders with extensive ICD-10 experience. We customize our services to meet your needs: we routinely take on short-term back-up or overflow coding, and we regularly enter into contracts for full provision of coding services on a day-forward basis. Coding is performed remotely over our secure network; our service employs multi-layered security measures and ensures the protection of patient health information. Our coders view and code only those health records to which they have been assigned. We help our clients gain access to a trained and experienced labor force, meet their deadlines, billing cycles, and improve internal and stakeholder reporting requirements.

Since 2000, Salumatics has provided flexible, secure and innovative solutions to clients across North America, employing privacy, confidentiality and security policies in compliance with applicable legislation.

For more information, please contact ICD10coding@salumatics.com