By Brett Paepke, OD, Director of ECP Services, RevolutionEHR
If you’re anything like me, you’re wondering three things right now: 1) Who is BTS and why are they so popular, 2) Why do we park on a driveway and drive on a parkway, and 3) What changes might we see with ICD-10 this year? Wait…you’re not wondering any of those things? Congratulations! I’d worry about you if you were. But at the risk of ignoring #1 and #2, let’s talk a bit about ICD-10 in the interest of preparing you far in advance of the changes this fall.
First, a bit of background to set the stage. Remember that ICD-10 offers us greater specificity than ICD-9 did and, in turn, allows health care systems to better track what conditions they’re managing, how diseases interrelate, etc. With that specificity comes many more available codes. There were around 13,000 ICD-9 codes in 2015 and, at the time of implementation, there were around 68,000 ICD-10 codes. That number has since grown to slightly over 72,000.
Each year a review panel meets multiple times to review stakeholder feedback about codes that should be added, removed, or edited and ultimately decides on the changes to be implemented on October 1 of that year. You’ll remember in 2016 we saw a high number of additions including new codes for glaucoma, macular degeneration, and diabetic retinopathy. 2017 brought us fewer changes but involved adding new codes for degenerative myopia and low vision. 2018 added a number of eyelid-related codes including the long-awaited ability to represent meibomian gland dysfunction.
The changes to take effect on October 1, 2019 have officially been released and offer a bit of relief to eye care. Specifically, just 68 new eye-related codes will go into effect this fall but they involve only four main areas:
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