Each time a patient visits their healthcare provider (doctor, PA, NP, PT, OD, etc.) a diagnosis is updated in the patient chart. For the past 20 years healthcare providers have used ICD9 as the national standard in documenting the diagnosis codes for patients. Beginning October, 1 2015 a new federal mandate will require all healthcare providers to use ICD10 coding for rendering diagnosis codes for patients.
The previous compliance deadline for ICD10 was October 1, 2014 but was pushed out another year by Congress. The change was signed into law last year by the President and ordered HHS to not set the ICD-10 compliance date any sooner than October 1, 2015.
So how will the change to ICD10 effect patients and their health records? Beginning October 1, 2015 patients will notice a different type of code relating to their clinical diagnosis. ICD10 codes provide more specific diagnosis codes for physicians. ICD9 has approximately 13,000 diagnosis codes compared to approximately 68,000 ICD10 codes. One fundamental difference would be the ability for healthcare providers to identify right and left when rending diagnosis codes. The goal of ICD10 codes is to allow healthcare providers to be more specific when documenting diagnosis codes for patients.
As the leading provider in online access to health records, ViewMyHealthRecords.com offers the latest technology to ensure patients have access to their health records. ICD10 is a huge step for the healthcare industry. Since ICD10 is new to healthcare providers, patients are strongly to pay close attention to the Diagnosis codes updated in their electronic health records beginning October 1, 2015. All health data viewed online is protected by 256-bit SSL encryption to ensure privacy and maximize security.
Accessing health data with ViewMyHealthRecords.com is simple and fast using a smart phone. If you are a registered user and have forgotten your user password then you can login to ViewMyHealthRecords.com and click on “forgot password”. ViewMyHealthRecord.com will email a link enabling you to reset your password. Take a few minutes today and review your health records.