Among the concerns that the mandated transition to ICD-10 brings is a widespread expectation that medical coders will essentially drop off a cliff, productivity-wise, once the compliance deadline arrives. 

ICD-10’s greater specificity and more numerous codes, the thinking goes, will make it trickier and more time consuming for physicians and clinicians to find exactly what they need.

To that end, the American Health Information Management Association, in a Journal of AHIMA article, offered three tactics for maintaining productive coding after Oct. 1, 2015, and while these may seem obvious they are nonetheless worth considering if you’ve not already.

1. Training. "This is not just a one-day or week intensive education session,” AHIMA explained. Instead, healthcare entities should provide coders continuous opportunities to practice ICD-10; dual-coding is one option. “It may not be practice to dual-code every chart but even just a couple charts per day is better than nothing at all."

2. Hire more coders. No one said ICD-10 was going to be easy – or inexpensive. Maintaining the same level of coding productivity you had with ICD-9 might demand more manpower. AHIMA recommends two places to look for new hires: contract coding companies and community college programs accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Health Informatics and Information Management Education.

3. Tap available technologies. Existing tools include computer-assisted coding, clinical documentation improvement – even a burgeoning crop of free or inexpensive apps geared to help coders transition to and ultimately use ICD-10.

"Coding productivity is predicted to take a dip during the transition to ICD-10," AHIMA explained. "That dip can be a minor speed bump or a gigantic crater, depending on many factors – which can be mitigated in these last few months leading up to implementation."