As part of your clinic’s ICD-10 Readiness are you signed up to test Medicare claims through your local Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs)? While this is not a full test that will identify all of the issues you may encounter, it is an important systems test that every practice will need to conduct at some point before the October implementation of ICD-10.
If you have not registered for this test you are probably a little late at this point. Each MAC is has publicized the testing week activities and provides registration information on their website. Find your MAC.
For the actual ICD-10 Readiness test you will need a sample of coded ICD-10 test Medicare claims with dates of service between October 1, 2013 and March 3, 2014. Your internal systems must be already capable of accepting, storing, and transmitting ICD-10 codes for this test to be conducted.
The test data is submitted through the Common Edits and Enhancements Module (CEM) or Common Electronic Data Interchange (CEDI). What you will receive back from the test will be a 277CA or 999 that acknowledges the claim was accepted or rejected. While this test will not provide confirmation of payment or remittance advice it is a good first step in ensuring your technical systems will take the ICD-10 coded claim from the provider to the Medicare system.
CMS is slated to have additional ICD-10 Readiness testing opportunities after this initial phase, however true end-to-end testing across a broad range of circumstances may not materialize and every clinic should be planning for some level of disruption come October 1st. Take the Outsource Receivable’s ICD-10 Stress Test at www.ICD-10StressTest.com to see if you have any unidentified gaps in your plans.