3. The United States would be behind the rest of the world if we delayed. 

It’s true. In our conversation with Tennant, he brought up a common misconception among ICD-10 supporters in the United States, which is we’re the last country to adopt the code set. Upon further digging, we saw this was true and found examples from ICD10 Watch LinkedIn group members, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield fact sheets, and more:

• Judy Monestime wrote in an ICD10 Watch post, “The United States is 10 years behind Canada and even farther behind Europe!!! The transition to ICD-10 is well overdue!”
• A frequently asked question sheet, posted online by Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield read, “Yes, most other countries are already using a version of ICD-10. The United States is the last industrialized nation to adopt ICD-10.”
• The AAPC listed in a fact sheet that, “ICD-10 is a diagnostic coding system implemented by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1993 to replace ICD-9, which was developed by WHO in the 1970s. ICD-10 is in almost every country in the world, except the United States.”
• Saince, which provides IT, HIM and business process outsourcing services to clients globally, wrote on its site, “The U.S. is the only developed country that has not adopted ICD-10. Of course, cost is a factor for the adoption delay, but waiting will only increase future implementation costs. But reduced healthcare costs will result once a more specific coding system like ICD-10 is adopted.”
• And a 2008 transcription of a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services ICD-10-CM/PCS National Provider Call for Hospital Staff showed speakers stating, “Though ICD-10-CM is currently not in use for any purposes in the U.S., several countries have either adopted or adapted some of the modifications that have been made in ICD-10-CM. Countries that have so far adopted ICD-10 or a clinical modification for use in either reimbursement or case mix include the United Kingdom, which was the first country in 1995, leading all the way to Canada in 2001.”

Tennant:

Not quite. “You may have heard we’re the last country to move to ICD-10,” Tennant said. “I’m sure some of the folks were saying that, and that’s a complete fabrication. It’s interesting because even providers around the country, they just assume that’s correct because so many people have said it, but that’s not the case.” In fact, said Tennant, we’re the only country to use ICD-10-CM, which is the largest code set of any country. “Just to give you some perspective,” Tennant continued, “The Canadian version of ICD-10-CA has only 17,000 codes; already, ICD-10 CM, the American version, has 69,000. What they don’t tell you is Canada took many years. They started in 2001 and didn’t finish until 2006.” But what’s most interesting, said Tennant, is Canada chose not to move to ICD-10 on the ambulatory practice side – only on the hospital side. “I bet you haven’t heard that,” he said. “It’s a lot of disinformation floating around the industry on ICD-10: the fact we’re woefully behind the rest of the world.”

Continued on the next page.