Here two spine surgeons discuss how ICD-10 has affected their respective practices.
Ask Spine Surgeons is a weekly series of questions posed to spine surgeons around the country about clinical, business and policy issues affecting spine care. We invite all spine surgeon and specialist responses.
Next week's question: What book have you read this year that has helped you professionally?
Please send responses to Anuja Vaidya at avaidya@beckershealthcare.com by Wednesday, Nov. 25, at 5 p.m. CST.
Question: Are you planning to make additions to your practice staff in the coming year as a result of ICD-10 implementation?
Richard Kube, MD, Founder, CEO, Prairie Spine & Pain Institute, Peoria, Ill.: We have added one additional staff member to the billing department. We split functions, in general, to include records custodian, billing and coding, collecting and posting, insurance verification with scheduling and appeals/oversight. We are adding an FTE so that each individual while having a general knowledge of all functions also has an area of focus. We hope that this will address the additional time required to document ICD-10 details.
Jeffrey R. Carlson, MD, President, Orthopaedic and Spine Center, Newport News, Va.: We are not planning on adding personnel as a result of ICD-10 but have added a significant cost to our EMR through enhancements. These costs will not be recovered. The idea that ICD-10 will increase our revenue is based on the notion that our coding was bad while using ICD-9. We have multiple coding FTE's that have been added over the years to keep up with the implementation of each new program. Our practice has kept current on the coding through courses and updates to stay ahead of each change because it is vitally important to get the coding correct, legally and financially. This diligence means that any new changes that add cost to our current budgets will not be made up with new revenues based purely on the coding model. There has been no increase in the reimbursement for a discectomy or a spinal fusion with implementation of ICD-10, it has only added another expense to our bottom-line.