My guess is that hospitals are probably ready for ICD-10, and physicians are not. I think Medicare wants to save money with hospital admissions more than with outpatient care. So, I'm guessing that hospitals will have to get specific with their coding ICD-10 before physicians do. If we keep a pulse on what is happening at our hospitals, we will have time to get serious about our practices. I think nonspecific will work just fine until Medicare has the hospitals under control. Then, the temp in the pot for us frogs is going to go up slowly.
If Congress is afraid to give us a 27% pay cut, I don't think Medicare will want to turn off our payments because our note says left elbow and the code isn't specific for the elbow. And commercials won't do anything until Medicare has been doing it successfully.
As to the delay of ICD-10, I don't think any senators will lose votes for delaying ICD-10, and it helps Democrats to keep more healthcare trauma out of the news at election time. No one else in the world is doing ICD-10 with the kind of complex health system that we have. Everyone else is basically single payer.
Of course, I'm not very good at guessing the stock market, lottery numbers or poker, so I'll stick to being a doctor that has to work harder for less money every year. ICD-10? Bring it on!
