Survival Strategies for Tsunami of ICD-10-CM for Interventionalists: Pursue or Perish!

The unfunded mandate for the implementation of International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM) is scheduled October 1, 2015. The development of ICD-10-CM has been a complicated process. We have endeavored to keep Interventional Pain Management doctors apprised via a variety of related topical manuscripts. The major issues relate to the lack of formal physician participation in its preparation. While the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) and American Hospital Association (AHA) as active partners in its preparation. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are major players; 3M and Blue Cross Blue Shield Association are also involved. The cost of ICD-10-CM implementation is high, similar to the implementation of electronic health records (EHRs), likely consuming substantial resources. While ICD-10, utilized worldwide, includes 14,400 different codes, ICD-10-CM, specific for the United States, has expanded to 144,000 codes, which also includes procedural coding system. It is imperative for physicians to prepare for the mandatory implementation. Conversion from ICD-9-CM to ICD-10-CM coding in interventional pain management is not a conversion of one to one that can be easily obtained from software packages. It is a both a difficult and time-consuming task with each physician, early on, expected to spend on estimation at least 10 minutes per visit on extra coding for established and new patients. For interventional pain physicians, there have been a multitude of changes, including creation of new codes and confusing conversion of existing codes. This manuscript describes a variety of codes that are relevant to interventional pain physicians and often utilized in daily practices. It is our objective that this manuscript will provide coding assistance to interventional pain physicians.