JACKSON, MISS– New medical coding laws go into effect Thursday that change the way your doctor’s office and your insurance provider communicate with each other.
When your doctor gives you a certain diagnosis, they put a code in your chart that the office uses when filing your insurance. Right now, it is an ICD-9 code. Starting Thursday, it’s ICD-10.
While this code has nothing to do with how you communicate with your doctor, it does make a difference in how your doctor communicates with your insurance provider.
“The doctor has to be more specific when it comes to a diagnosis,” says Dawn Adams, Office Manager at Southern Women’s Health. She says the code isn’t as simple as just adding notes, “my physicians have had to go to classes, my staff has had to go to a class, and probably could go to more classes.”
Even though doctors and their staff across the state are following suit with this style of training, it’s not just the training that’s necessary to making the transition smoothly.
“We’ve had to update our system,” says Adams. The Mississippi Department of Health Clinics are also closing at noon on Wednesday, to make their necessary updates before seeing patients again Thursday.
The new coding system should not affect patients in the long-run, however, Adams says that with any massive change, there are problems.
“Doctors will have to get use to this new system, as will the staff,” says Adams, “so patients may have longer waits, later dates, for their appointments.”
The new codes, by law, have to start being utilized by October 1st.
