We are regularly surprised by the lack of training provided by practices and other organizations to new staff members when they come aboard. If the person they are replacing does not hang around to do training on our software, the new user is left to learn on their own. Even for an experienced behavioral health practice manager or billing specialist, starting a new job and jumping into a new software product without training can lead to under-use and even to misuse of the software tool with which they are provided.
Synergistic Office Solutions can provide training to new staff people for what we view as a reasonable fee. Since much of their time will be wasted hunting around for how to do their jobs without guidance, investing in training for them can be a wise tack for a practitioner to take.
I thought about this when I got a new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) notice last week indicating that updated ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS codes are now available on their website. Here is the notice.
2017 ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS Files Available
The 2017 ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS code updates, including a complete list of code titles, are available on the 2017 ICD-10-CM and GEMs and 2017 ICD-10-PCS and GEMs
webpages. The posted files contain the complete versions of bothICD-10-CM (diagnoses) and ICD-10-PCS (procedures).
- 2017 General Equivalence Mappings (GEMs) will be posted in August 2016
- Official Coding Guidelines and the Present on Admission (POA) Exempt List will be available soon
Updates of software, of code sets, of most anything, usually contain changes that the creators of the update consider important. If this were not so, they would not bother to create and notify users of the update.
After reading the CMS notice, I found myself thinking about new staff members in organizations that use HCPCS codes instead of CM codes. Some do not even know that they use a different code set than most organizations. How could they possibly be expected to know they need to attend to this update of codes if they do not even know which codes they use.
We here at SOS believe that the more information you and your staff have, the more easily and effectively you will be able to do your jobs. Please help your staff learn what they need to know. They will reward you by increasing your payer reimbursements!
