There was a big anniversary. Did you miss it? Medicare and Medicaid celebrated 50 years old.
On July 30, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the bill that led to the Medicare and Medicaid. In 1972 Medicare expanded to cover disabled, ESRD (people with end-stage renal disease requiring dialysis or kidney transplant and people 65 or older that select Medicare.
More benefits such as prescription drug benefits have also been offered.
Medicaid initially provided medical insurance coverage for people that were getting cash assistance. Now the program also includes:
- People of all ages with disabilities
- Pregnant women
- Low-Income families
- People who need long-term care
In 1997 another program was developed to provide preventive care to approximately 11 million uninsured children. That program is called The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). This is well accepted as some working families that are uninsured earned too much to be Medicaid eligible. All 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the territories have CHIP plans.
2010 The Affordable Care Act (ACA) introduced the Health Insurance Marketplace. Consumers can now go to a single place to apply for and enroll in private health insurance plans. CMS (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services) has produced a website I came across and is great resource for preparing for ICD-10. Go to the url www.roadto10.org and you will find helpful information.
At the moment there are 4 webcasts available to watch, and then it looks like there are another 2 planned. I think these will be useful to you in your preparations for the ICD-10 transition.
The Build Your Action Plan is a useful tool in letting you know what you need to do to prepare according to:
- Your specialty
- Number of Physicians
- Technology you are using
There is great emphasis on clinical documentation as the code increase from ICD-9 to ICD-10 has increased by up to 40.9X for some specialties. See below sample coding increase by specialty:
As a special bonus we are offering a limited number of no-cost FREE ICD-10 Gap Analysis for select practices. Our team of AHIMA ICD-10 Certified Coders will do chart assessment and validate ICD-9 and ICD-10 via our secured HIPPA compliant servers.
Precision Healthcare Consultants sells more than just software that is ICD-10 ready. We are a trusted resource for improving the productivity and efficiency of a practice along with providing tools that will help provide better patient care and can review your clinical documentation by certified specialists. Give us a call for your ICD-10 ready Medisoft v20 (which is currently 20% off), medical billing services or any other practice management need.
Click here and one of our representatives will contact you to setup your complimentary free audit.