Well, it was a stressful and eventful week for AHIMA and the
HIM profession. A lot has happened since last Wednesday. I
mentioned last week that we were waiting on a vote in the House on a bill that
had language slipped into it (7 lines) that would delay ICD-10 for another
year. AHIMA rallied it’s members and over 6000 calls were made to
Senators by AHIMA members alone. Sadly, the bill passed in the House vote
last Thursday. This brought on a massive effort by AHIMA and its members
to inform the Senate about this “hidden language” in the bill and beg them to
have it removed or vote no. Thousands and thousands of emails and calls
were made again, by AHIMA members to their local Senators. A massive
Twitter initiative was launched as well. We really did everything we
could, but unfortunately this bill was passed on Monday and expected to be
signed by President Obama.
What does this mean for the HIM program at Charter Oak and
all of you? Actually, not much, thank goodness. Since none of you
have taken our coding courses, we are able to still move forward as
planned. Our HIM 210 course, Medical Coding and Billing I - ICD-10, will
still be taught this fall, 2014, and keep you right on track for learning
ICD-10 for the new date of October 1, 2015. In this course you will learn
a bit of ICD-9, just enough to know what it is like, but you will focus on
ICD-10 because that is where the focus will be by the time your graduate.
Just keep in mind that it isn’t so easy for HIM students at other schools who
are graduating next month. They have learned ICD-10, and now the schools
have to scramble to somehow teach them ICD-9 so they will be employable and
ready for their RHIT or RHIA exams. It is a really difficult time right
now for those schools. It is also very difficult for all of the health
care facilities who were prepared and just about ready to make the transition
this October. All of their efforts are now halted and new plans have to
be made.
Read here to see how AHIMA responded to the first vote:
Read here to see their article after the bill passed in the
Senate:
Please let me know if you have any questions about
this! Happy Wednesday!
Cindy Glewwe, M.Ed., RHIA
Director, Health Information Management Program
Charter Oak State College
55 Paul J. Manafort Drive
New Britain, CT 06053
(Ph.) 860-515-3833
