ICD-10 It is almost here! What podiatrist need to keep in mind-don't lose yourself in the details!

The October 1st deadline is quickly approaching for ICD-10.  Of course the question we are all asking is- "am I ready?"  But the follow up questions are, "is my staff?", "is my billing company?", "is my coding person?"  The reality is none of us truly know.  Insurance companies have the upper hand on this one.  We can only try our best to be prepared but the absolute word of caution I have for you is, do not rely on anyone else other than yourself to know what you need to know.  As a podiatrist, you know you have to be a little more scrappy than the other specialties.  We know modifiers, as we have the craziest modifiers and are a modifier specialty in our procedure codes.  So you should not fear the new diagnosis codes that are followed by: A D G S for the trauma fracture codes for example.

After one week of billing you will remember easily that when seeing fractures these letters will trail your diagnosis:

• A, Initial encounter for closed fracture
• B, Initial encounter for open fracture
• D, Subsequent encounter for fracture with routine healing
• G, Subsequent encounter for fracture with delayed healing

I have struggled to the level of specificity that is truly needed for your claim to be considered clean.  If you bill 73630 for example, for x-rays right side for a right foot 2nd metatarsal fracture non-displaced, the exact code is S92.324A.  There is also a code of S92.301A that is fracture of metatarsal closed right foot that would most likely get this claimed covered for you as well, but none of us are exactly sure yet. On my superbill I did not included every fracture of every bone.  My recommendation is to have a cheat sheet for fractures of metatarsals laminated and put in your office and at every desk in your office where staff members sit. We have this cheat sheet available and included with our Podiatry specific ICD-10 Superbill.  This is available at our website at: http://centeranklefootcare.com/catalog/c14_p1.html

But at the end of the day, what you need to make sure you know how to bill inside and out is your most common diagnosis with your most common procedures.  Sure I see trauma, but I see a lot of plantar fasciitis, posterior tibial tendonitis, peroneal tendonitis, ankle sprains, ulcers and diabetic foot care.  I will tell you that these are clear and very straightforward for the most part in ICD10. We are all in this together and should not be overwhelmed by the bean counters. 

Good luck as October 1st, 2015 nears closer!

Michele McGowan, DPM

Are you frustrated with impending ICD-10 quickly approaching? We have made it a little easier for other podiatrists!

If you have not yet put together a Superbill to make it easier for yourself or your staff you may want to check out ours.  We have put together the 50 plus most common codes used by podiatrists, because we are podiatrists this was the easy part.  The hard part was converting each code to the level of specificity needed for ICD-10.  There are many mumbling conversations where people are excited to not have to code perfect for the beginning of the ICD-10 transition, but our specialty of podiatry is so specific, why not do it right from the start?

We have available a customization format where will email you a word, rtf and pdf  format.  The superbill has the most common podiatry diagnosis and the most common podiatry procedure codes.  It is an excellent way to keep you and your staff from going crazy trying to convert on the fly.  You may need to change some codes if some of the codes change, but this will be easy as you will have the master copy!

This Superbill is available on our website at : http://www.centeranklefootcare.com/catalog/c14_p1.html 

Below are just some of the podiatry specific diagnosis on our superbill that is pictured above but with the specific detail needed.

• abscess  toe
• hallux valgus
• hammer toe
• achilles tendonitis
• tarsal tunnel
• diabetic foot care codes
• plantar fasciitis
• ankle sprain
• ulcers
• and much more 

Good luck to everyone as you prepare for this next journey in healthcare!

Fellow Podiatrist, Are You Ready For ICD-10?

When we thought in 2013 that ICD-10 was going to happen in 2014 we did extensive work on getting ready for the changes.  As the ICD-10 was postponed until this year, were lucky enough to be able to say "yes we are ready for ICD-10!" 

Of course, there are so many layers to being ICD-10 ready.  Yes we have an amazing EMR and Billing company that are linked seamlessly.  This does make the transition much easier.  But being a little type A personality and wanting to make sure we were the captain of our ship, we painfully went through our most commonly used diagnosis codes and then converted them into the ICD-10 format.  Our practice is a very typical podiatry practice with a very nice mix of in office procedures, out-patient surgeries and of course in patient diabetic debridements and amputations.  

We wanted to make this transition easy for us and our staff. Here you can see our example and the way we made this easy on our superbill:

The ICD-9 on the left hand side with the ICD-10 on the right hand side with brief description in the middle will make the transition easier for all hands involved in the billing process. As we completed the over 50 most common diagnosis that might be seen by a typical podiatrist and the most common procedure codes all on one sheet of paper we thought we were set. Then we were approached by another podiatrist who was looking for something like we had just completed.  He was happy to not have to do the leg work and wanted to pay us for our time.  Though it took forever to complete this task, I could not see charging him an arm and a leg(no pun intended) so we came to the agreement of $75.  We gave it to him in an email in word document which he was able to adjust and edit to his liking.  We gave him the disclaimer that we can not predict if insurances will change the game with some of these codes but these are these most accurate conversions with the correct side designations. 

So with the same disclaimer in tow, we would like to see if anyone needs a concise complete one page superbill that you can customize by adding or subtracting codes at your leisure.  If you do not have a superbill that is ICD-10 ready, ours is a very good start to making your transition with less stress.  We are in no way shape or form promising that insurance companies will not try to continue make all of our lives more difficult as doctors, but that this may help your transition be smoother. 

If you are interested in using our superbill, check out our website where you can order it online and we can email it to you directly in a format that you can edit it in Word or PDF.  http://www.centeranklefootcare.com/catalog/c14_p1.html