We recommend that you organize your planning into five steps for readiness.

1. Initiate, plan, and communicate

  • Establish an ICD-10 team with a leader empowered to move the  process along.
  • Set a meeting frequency for the team—ideally, biweekly.
  • Determine decision-making authority, including a reporting structure  that fits within your organization (e.g., to an IT Steering Committee or  Senior Management).
  • Develop a detailed timeline, list of tasks, and anticipated effort.
  • Educate leadership and key stakeholders on the impact and  importance of ICD-10. This is not a flashy project like others you may  be implementing; it will take effort to get the attention of leadership to  understand its importance.
  • Communicate the transition plan—and why ICD-10 matters—to the  entire health system and outside partners/vendors/payers.

Complete discovery, inventory, assessment, and implement change

  • Gather a preliminary list of applications, systems, and databases   potentially impacted (including any quality reporting tools or legacy  databases).
  • Create an ICD-10 inventory and status tracker template to organize,  track, and filter your progress towards compliance.
  • Conduct discovery work sessions with all departments, vendors, and  payers to determine readiness and identify risks for non-compliance.
  • Update and maintain the inventory of areas with current ICD-10  readiness, including: 
  • Summary plan for ICD-10 compliance
  • Specific dates when ICD-10 will be ready for testing
  • A roster of impacted departments and people
  • Anticipated training needs
  • Identified risks
  • Current status
  • "Backup and contingency plans, especially if a vendor is not ready    by 2014
  • Execute your ICD-10 plans, upgrade software systems, modify  databases, and prepare for testing and training.

3. Test and train

Develop a written testing plan and testing scenarios, including:

  • Software testing (unit, system, performance, etc.)
  • ICD-10 Level I compliance testing (internal testing)
  • ICD-10 Level II compliance testing (external testing)
  • Assess training needs and create written training plan.

4. Transition

  • Go live with ICD-10 in accordance with the compliance date.
  • Operate using ICD-10 coding system for all events moving forward.
  • Utilize ICD-9 coding system for all events prior to the compliance  deadline.

5.Monitor

Initiate your monitoring plan including monitoring for:

  • Issues
  • Productivity
  • Accuracy
  • Staffing levels and morale
  • Quality
  • Reimbursement
  • Ongoing support needs and continued improvement

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.