New WEDI ICD-10 Initiative Looks at Reducing Time, Costs Associated with Compliance
The Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI) is a non-profit organization established in 1991 by Health and Human Services (HHS). WEDI’s mission is to improve the use of health information technology and reduce healthcare system costs. Earlier this month WEDI announced that health information groups from four state have been selected to participate in a new initiative to share best practices on implementation of ICD-10 code sets. In a press release issued by WEDI, the organization states the creation of the WEDI ICD-10 State Collaborative Initiative is intended to “increase efficiencies and reduce the significant time and costs associated with ICD-10 compliance.”
The goals of the WEDI ICD-10 initiative includes sharing best practices, collaborating in end-to-end testing and working together to reduce risks, costs and efforts associated with ICD-10 implementation. After delaying compliance by a year last August, HHS has set the new compliance date for transitioning to the ICD-10 code set as October 1, 2014. CMS has stated there will be no further delays. The initiative’s initial State partners include California ICD -10 Collaborative, Massachusetts Health Data Consortium, Minnesota ICD-10 Collaborative, NCHICA and Wisconsin ICD-10 Collaborative.
To help usher in the initiative a new WEDI sub-workgroup will be formed and named on June 1, 2013. The very first ICD-10 state collaborative meeting will then convene on July 22, 2013 in Fairfax, VA at the WEDI ICD-10/HPID Implementation Excellence Forum.
Session topics to be addressed at this four-day forum include:
- Clinical Documentation and strategies for engaging physicians
- Operational Readiness and implementation risks
- How do we deal with the changes required for reporting after ICD-10 “go-live”
- Staffing for ICD-10 implementation
- ICD-10 Roadmap Tool Kit
CMS will also be on hand for a half day, no cost, listening session on topics related to the Health Plan Identifier (HPID), including HPID in the standard transactions, the Health Plan and Other Entity Enumeration System (HPOES), and use of the HPID in the Federally Facilitated Marketplace. The session is scheduled for July 25 from 9 am to 12 pm EDT.
Learn more about the WEDI ICD-10 Excellence Forum here.