Survey: Payers Worried About Provider ICD-10 Progress

A stunning 86 out of 100 responding health care payers in the fifth of a series of periodic surveys on ICD-10 readiness worry that providers won't be ready by the October 2013 compliance date to submit claims using ICD-10 codes. Only 9 percent of surveyed payers have begun testing provider submitted data.

That compares with a 75 percent rate of payers worried about provider progress in a survey taken during the third quarter of 2010. Gantry Group, a Concord, Mass.-based market research firm, is conducting the surveys for The TriZetto Group, a Greenwood Village, Colo.-based payer software vendor. Other results of the fifth survey, completed in February 2011, include:

* As of February with 11 months until the HIPAA 5010 transactions deadline, 47 percent of surveyed payers have built or mapped 4010 to 5010 files;

* Only 9 percent of surveyed payers have completed 5010 trading partner testing; and

* Health insurers increasingly are more receptive to receiving ICD-10 assistance from vendors with infrastructure modifications, strategic planning, care management upgrades and testing.

An executive summary of survey results is available here. Registration is required.

--Joseph Goedert