Home Forums Discussions General Discussion What happens if I DON'T upgrade to version 8 by October 1st?

Hi folks,
I've been hearing the drumbeat of the Oct 1 deadline for upgrading to version 8 because "ICD 10 is coming."
On the other hand there is all this talk of AC slowing to a crawl with ver 8.
My question is: I don't use AC for PM & billing purposes anyway; so why should I care if my AC is not upto date with ICD10? Can't I continue to use my version 7,2 with ICD9 and use ICD10 in my billing system come Oct 1?

I think AC said they wanted to get everyone on the same version to streamline their support. My guess as their customer support base grows, they have a hard time keeping all the technicians updated on issues with the older versions. My guess is the vast majority of them have little experience with anything before V6.

It's a good move. Makes it a lot easier for the techs too. But they need to iron out all the bugs and ensure backwards compatibility before making it mandatory. I personally wouldn't have lined up the mandatory upgrade with the ICD 10 date.

AJ,

The short answer is that is exactly what you can do, and several practices, for several valid reasons are considering.

Increasingly for Physicians/Providers who see a large spectrum of problems, it makes sense to offload coding/ICD10 memorization to someone with less earning power and lower labor costs.

@Indy,

You are spot on. Except that nowadays our billers are making more money than we are.

Now, I realize that us recovering engineers can be too literal, but I am taking you at face value.

My understanding is that employed billers at the top end make $20-$30 per hour. Full time, that puts them in the $40K-$60K range yearly. Hopefully you are doing better than that Bert.

Well, I can afford sushi sometimes so maybe a little more.

Figure doc $30 per hour first 40 hours a week then overtime @$45 per hour the next 40 hours and you come up with $150k yearly which should be more in the ballpark.

This is an interesting bill.