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Question for coding students - sm

Posted: Jul 17, 2013

I'm looking into different coding programs. A local community college is teaching ICD-10, while Career Step, for example, is teaching ICD-9, but offering a "free ICD-10 FastTrack course to prepare you for the transition to ICD-10." Is it odd that Career Step is still teaching primarily ICD-9? What about Andrews? How are they handling this transition?

No, it's not odd - anon

[ In Reply To ..]
You'll have to know both, ultimately. I don't know what Andrews is doing, but you can call and talk to Linda. She's very helpful.

Okay thank you. Do you know if... - OP

[ In Reply To ..]
some places will still be using ICD-9 in 10/2014, or is it mandatory that ICD-10 is used? I would think it would take a while for all of the different facilities to get on board with this huge change.

Yes, I do know - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
No, some facilities will not be sticking with ICD-9. That is not an option. Not if they want to get paid, anyway.

They have already had years to get used to the idea, including one extension. Unless the federal government does an about-face on this, the switch will happen.

I do think there is a small possibility that it will never occur. Various groups are lobbying for that. It is unlikely, though.

You are asking about what you should do. You have to learn both. There is no way around it, unless you want to be a sort of second-class coder unable to do anything using ICD-9. Do you want to be unable to code old claims? Do you want to never be able to understand data coded in ICD-9? What happens on Nov 23, when you have to recode a claim or figure out what is wrong with it? What happens in 3 years when someone asks you to retrieve old coded data?

Even more to the point, what exactly are you planning on doing between your course and Oct 1? Getting a job, for which you will need 9? Or twiddling your thumbs? Losing coder income every day?

And wouldn't employers think better of you if you could code in both?

You might be asking because you think it is twice as much work to learn both. That is actually not the case. The diagnosis coding part of ICD-10 is very similar to ICD-9. The diseases aren't changing. The classification system is not so much different as it is expanded. The numbering system is a little different, but that isn't a problem because we do not memorize numbers. It takes a few hours to transition from ICD-9 to 10 for diagnoses. Procedures take a little longer, but that only applies to inpatient coding, which most schools are not going to prepare you to do anyway.

Great info, thank you. - OP

[ In Reply To ..]
I'm actually hoping to learn both for the exact reasons you stated. The community college course I was looking at is teaching 10, but it seemed very limiting to not know 9. Thanks again.

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