Wedi Survey Shows Healthcare Industry Lagging Behind in ICD-10 Transition

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Posted By: Roberta Mullin April 15, 2013

WEDI’s ICD-10 Survey to measure progress towards 2014 compliance dateLatest ICD-10 Survey Results Sent to CMS

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 The organization’s tagline is Preparing for Electronic Delivery of Information in Healthcare. Since 2009, the organization has been conducting  periodic ICD-10 readiness surveys to gauge the status of industry progress towards compliance. WEDI’s latest survey from March of this year has been compiled and analyzed and on April 11, 2013 the organization submitted the results of the survey to CMS and sent a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius giving an over of  the results. The WEDI report concludes that the healthcare industry is not making the progress needed to ensure a smooth transition to ICD-10 by the October 1, 2014 deadline.

Key findings from the ICD-10 Survey

  • Almost half of the health plans expect to begin external testing by the end of this year. In the 2012 survey all health plans had expected to begin in 2013.
  • About half of the providers responded that they did not know when testing would occur and over two fifths of provider respondents indicated they did not know when they would complete their impact assessment and business changes.
  • About two thirds of vendors indicate they plan to begin customer review and beta testing by the end of this year. This is similar to the number who expected to begin by the end of 2012 in the prior survey.

In a press release issued by WEDI, Stanley Nachimson, Director of the NCHICA/WEDI timeline initiative said“While the NCHICA/WEDI timeline represented an orderly, consensus-based approach to compliance with all entities, it has become clear that many entities postponed their work until much later.. It remains to be seen how this postponement will affect the progress to compliance. Indications remain that significant numbers of industry participants have a considerable amount of work to do in a very short time.”

“The survey results show that projected timeframes for testing have shifted and many organizations will not begin this task until 2014,” said Jim Daley, WEDI Chairman. “Because of the magnitude of ICD-10 it is critical that organizations complete their remediation efforts as quickly as possible in order to allow adequate time for testing.”

You can read the WEDI letter to HHS here.