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Much has been said about the need to upgrade the IT system of the organizations in the healthcare industry during the ICD-10 conversion, and the need to do so is indeed crucial to achieving financial neutrality. But there’s an equally component that organizations should also pay close attention to and that’s the supply side of the equation. Quality human resource is now more important than ever to ensure the smooth transition from the old system into the new coding sets. Why are Good Workers Necessary? The technological applications to aid organizations survive the new medical coding guidelines can only do so much. Ultimately, it’s going to be the skills and talent of the workforce to encode the information, make sense of the unstructured data healthcare and evaluate the results with the end view of providing excellent health care to patients. The problem is not finding employees because there’s a large pool of applicants to choose from because of the jobless rate in the country. The problem is finding the right people to do the job required by the company. What’s the Reason for the Difficulty? There’s a glaring mismatch in the skills offered by the workforce against the needs of the organizations. For one, there’s a bit of difference in the expectations of both parties. While workers expect high salaries and wages, some companies believe they have the upper hand in the current seller’s market which means they could lowball. There’s also a noticeable drop in the attitude and mindset of some employees (along with some commercial companies) and forget that the healthcare industry is in the business of providing excellent care and not exists solely for profit. In connection with this, some employees (and hospital administration as well) lack the interpersonal communication skills necessary to make the patients comfortable. This could prove the difference maker in the success or failure during the ICD-10 conversion. Contract Services From some companies’ standpoint, employing regular workers isn’t just worth it. So they instead contract their human resources from manpower agencies, and leave the evaluation of the quality in skills and talents to that agency. In this way, the organization can just deal with one entity instead of different personalities. It also makes the hiring and firing process a lot easier in case of ICD-10 fraud and abuse as a result of wrong practices. This could either be a genius move or a tragic decision. It might work in certain circumstances when there are limited beds and the supervisors can directly monitor the hired personnel from the manpower agency. For bigger hospitals, however, or those with beds of 400 or more, it’s best to use contract workers for less than crucial tasks and instead train its staff to cope with the new challenges offered by the ICD-10 conversion.
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ICD-10 conversion, unstructured data healthcare, ICD-10 fraud and abuse,
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