BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Physicians should concentrate on taking care of patients – not taking care of clinical diagnosis coding, paperwork and billing. With this in mind, Health Connexions has inked a strategic alliance with ICDNavigator to provide ICD-9 to ICD-10 transition assistance, compliance and conversion services to help healthcare professionals in the tedious task of coding medical visits. The ICDNavigator is a cloud-based ICD-10 smart navigation tool which is coupled with a unique ICD-10 Call Center Hotline and LiveChat with ScreenShare support feature. The Call Center Hotline is staffed by on-demand, remote medical coders, making this offering truly one-of-a-kind.
ICDNavigator provides several ways to assist with the ICD-9 to ICD-10 conversion, and compliance with ICD-coding requirements post October 1st 2015. ICDNavigator has a diagnosis keyword-driven search functionality, with ICD-9 to ICD-10 cross-walk, which is provided all on one screen. Additionally, there is an online version of the actual ICD-10CM code book which medical coders use, with alphabetical and tabular listing that is also searchable via keywords on the alphabetical indexes.
The ICDNavigator tool is unique since it comes with a library of global (industry-wide) ICD-10CM code level notifiers such as Excludes1, Exlcudes2, suggested or mandatory Additional codes, as well as ICD-10 code-level alerts for every conceivable clinical specialty or practice.
If that’s not enough, the ICDNavigator is customizable from site-to-site without programming, by merely adding practice or clinic-specific keywords, or office-wide, high risk codes, or additional codes for accurate specificity. This effectively mimics a real-time user or site-specific “super bill”, which physicians or coders can input into via their browser.
ICD Navigator provides a simple, intuitive API (Application Programming Interface) to embed into your current Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system, whether proprietary or open-sourced (OpenEmR). Alternatively, the ICDNavigator can be used as a stand-alone, independent system via an online month-to-month subscription version.
After entering search keywords, the ICD Navigator provides the coding options – and allows the physician or their office staff to choose the most appropriate diagnosis code. No other system offers this one-click, keyword-driven search capability. This is critical because a single ICD-9 code may map to multiple ICD-10 codes. And, to add even more complications, there are new concepts in ICD-10 that are not present in ICD-9.
With the ICD-9 to ICD-10 conversion called one of the “most complex undertakings” in recent history for physicians, it is important to get professional help to get it right. Now, physicians and their staff can use the new ICDNavigator online tool, with full telephone or LiveChat with ScreenShare assistance provided 24/7, to suit every professional’s time and budget.
“At Health Connexions, we strive to remove the roadblocks hampering health care success and better outcomes for patients. A physician’s time must be protected. It is their expertise that needs to be squarely focused on diagnosing and treating ailments. We cannot be diverting their time to less productive endeavors,” declared Dawn Van Dam, President & CEO of Health Connexions. “This transition from ICD-9 to ICD-10 will be a daunting task.”
“The ICD-9 to ICD-10 conversion has been dubbed as a potential Y2K (Year 2000)-level problem, with anticipated tectonic shocks, plus ripple effects, to the entire healthcare stakeholder chain. This change will affect clinical diagnosis, coding and revenue cycle systems that will surely impact all providers, vendors and payers,” according to Ram Balani, CEO of ICDNavigator.
As stated by American Medical Association CEO and Executive Vice President James Madara, M.D., the ICD-9 to ICD-10 conversion and transition represents the largest technical, operational and business implementation in the past several decades because it will require physicians and their office staff to contend with 68,000 diagnosis codes. That is a five-fold increase from the approximately 13,000 diagnosis codes currently in use in ICD-9.
This strategic alliance between Health Connexions and ICD Navigator will bring new, one-of-a kind ICD-10 readiness and implementation services to the market so healthcare professionals can focus more on their patients and less on documenting and coding. The ICDNavigator’s 1) hosted ICD-10 computer-assisted coding assistant and 2) real-time ICD-10 Call Center Hotline and LiveChat with ScreenShare, staffed by professional coders on-demand, is designed to narrow the gap between physician clinical visit documentation and the medical coder’s interpretation of patient visit notes, EMR records or charts.
“Although the transition to ICD-10 coding is complex, requires ‘deep’ specificity, and is fraught with challenges for providers, payers and vendors alike, with our Live expert ICD-10 Call Center Hotline medical coder agents, and the ICDNavigator tool, this transition can be accomplished in house and easily, without losing revenue or hiring costly outside ICD-10 coders or consultants, or risking HIPAA compliance,” Ram Balani has stated.
Electronic medical record companies and revenue cycle management vendors are struggling still with implementing various ICD-10 compliance solutions into their systems. ICDNavigator, however, designed with state-of-the-art big data and Internet cloud-based search indexing software technologies, has the ability to be seamlessly implemented and embedded into EMR vendor solutions, without new software development, or additional time and costs for these EMR providers.
As the most comprehensive and searchable system available, ICDNavigator has the ability to ensure a physician’s practice can seamlessly transition to this new ICD-10 paradigm, without compromising their time with patients, or having them and their staff become overly dependent on external consultants. With ICDNavigator, ‘high-tech’ goes hand-in-hand with ‘high-touch’ since no one software or computer-assisted system can handle the challenges of the new ICD-10 coding requirements.
Health Connexions:
The Health Connexions™ vision is to transform science into commercial success. Health Connexions helps clients in the life sciences, health care and consumer health sectors by leveraging its extensive network and unique collaborative model in consulting, market research, technology evaluations and marketing communications services. Health Connexions also provides strategic advisory services for capital raising to fund new innovations, new opportunities, and the growth of established organizations. Visit www.healthconnexions.com.
ICDNavigator:
ICDNavigator is a computer-assisted, site-customizable ICD-10 tool designed to narrow or eliminate the gap between physician clinical diagnosis documentation and ICD-10 medical coding by coders who inherit patient charts or medical records from patient visits. ICDNavigator uses state-of-the-art, Internet cloud-based search technologies (‘high tech’), paired with its unique ICD-10 Call Center Hotline/LiveChat with ScreenShare feature that insures remote assistance from “live”, professional ICD-10 coders is just a call or few clicks away (‘high touch’). Visit www.icdnavigator.com for more information.
