ICD 10 is scarry and ICD 11 is comming

ICD 10 came into use among the WHO member countries in 1994 and the United States completed revising ICD 10 to ICD-10-CM in 2003 and it then took more than a decade for the United States to implement ICD-10-CM i.e. in 2013. Implementation of ICD-10-CM in Oct 2013 is usually described as Y2K of medical coding, because of the huge transition that involves not only medical coding training but also transition of IT system associated with the revenue cycle management of providers and payers. This implementation will cause backlogs for several months and even after complete transition productivity will come down due to complexity of ICD-10-CM. The ICD-10-CM is so complex and extensive that crosswalk software would not produce desired results as it will throw too many options to choose from and thus requiring the coders to work more like an analyst than rather a medical coder of present day.

Now, many are asking the question that since ICD 11 is in development then why not directly implement ICD 11 instead of ICD 10. The alpha draft of ICD 11 was made online in July in 2011 and the final draft is expected to be available by 2015. Although ICD 11 will be ready by 2015, it may take at least two decades for its implementation in the United States. According to a study, ICD 10 implementation will cost around six to 14 billions dollars in a time span of three-years. This is a costly investment by the US health care industry and hence the industry will not be ready anytime soon to spend another 10-20 billions dollars for ICD 11 implementation.

Intraoperative Radiation Therapy CPT Codes

New CPT codes for intraoperative radiation therapy have been introduced and are to be used beginning 2012 . These new codes for electronic brachytherapy are as follows:

77424 IORT delivery, x-ray, single treatment session
77469 IORT management

Electronic Brachytherapy is a minimally invasive procedure and is completed in just one session. This allows the patient to resume normal life activities sooner than any other therapy present today . Other therapeutic alternatives for intraoperative radiotherapy require five to seven weeks of treatment courses.

AHIMA approves Career Step Medical Coding Course

Career Step's inpatient and outpatient medical coding and billing online courses have been approved by AHIMA. Career Step is a leading online training school for entry-level medical coding and billing professionals for years. They have gained national level repute and respect for their training methods and professionalism. They have a placement cell for the students they train and have placed students with 700 companies. Apart from medical coding and billing, Career Step also has training courses in medical transcription, pharmacy assistant, and administrative assistant.

Career Step has recently been listed among the top educational institutes in the Inc. Magazine's 5000 list of private American companies. Career Step has also won several honors and awards at the national level.