Optum ICD-10 Training Curriculum Helps Hospitals Prepare for the New Coding Standard

• Optum ICD-10 Core Education delivers comprehensive training to prepare physicians, coders and other staff affected by the transition to ICD-10

• Three levels of instruction introduce ICD-10 concepts, enable individuals to develop practical skills and apply them through on-the-job training
• Education series complements Optum’s full-service suite of ICD-10 solutions for hospitals

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn., Sept. 27, 2012 – Optum has launched Optum ICD-10 Core Education, a comprehensive training program to help hospitals ensure physicians, coders and other staff who are affected by the new coding standard are fully prepared before the October 2014 deadline.

According to a survey conducted by the American Hospital Association in February, physician training (90 percent) and coder training (64 percent) are the leading ICD-10 implementation challenges cited by hospital executives.

“Optum ICD-10 Core Education delivers complete, customizable ICD-10 instruction that leverages the expertise Optum has gained by conducting ICD-10 business readiness assessments with hundreds of health systems across the U.S.,” said Kyle Pak, senior vice president and general manager at Optum. “Optum provides comprehensive capabilities to help hospitals plan, integrate and sustain ICD-10 coding in their business processes, and this curriculum will be essential to those efforts.”

Optum ICD-10 Core Education provides a complete training program that can be customized to meet the learning needs of physicians, nurses, coders, clinical documentation improvement specialists, and other hospital staff whose work is affected by ICD-10. Three levels of instruction comprise the Optum ICD-10 Core Education curriculum:

• Overview training, which orients participants to the reasons, benefits, challenges and timelines of ICD-10 as well as department-specific impacts to workflow and systems.
• Knowledge-based/skill transfer, to provide a deeper understanding of ICD-10 and ensure those who work with diagnosis data can easily navigate and use the code set.
• On-the-job training, which helps learners apply their ICD-10 training to their current work.

Supplemental ICD-10 training options are also available. These include on-site train-the-trainer sessions to cultivate physician champions, courses designed to build more in-depth experience and support through medical records audits, and education during the dual-coding and post-transition phases of ICD-10 implementation.

Upgrading the health system to ICD-10 dramatically expands the classification system used to code health conditions, their severity, and the procedures used in patient care. This index, which serves an essential function in medical billing and quality measurement and compliance programs, will grow to more than 155,000 codes from 17,000 in ICD-9.

Training and education are critical to comprehensive ICD-10 readiness programs, which also include assessment, coding, clinical documentation, reimbursement, technology and process management. The transition will affect nearly every member of a hospital or health system, and will influence nearly every aspect of patient care delivery from clinical documentation, contracts, business processes, budgets, payment systems, claims processing and care utilization management. Without adequate preparation, hospitals face lost productivity and an increase in denied claims, which could cause significant disruptions to revenue cycle management and financial performance.

Optum brings more than 25 years in coding expertise and leadership, and a comprehensive suite of technology, services and analytics capabilities to help hospitals plan, transition and measure their ICD-10 programs, as well as to leverage their investments to drive long-term business improvement.

For more information about Optum ICD-10 Core Education, visit optuminsight.com

About Optum

Optum (www.optum.com) is a leading information and technology-enabled health services business dedicated to helping make the health system work better for everyone. Optum comprises three companies – OptumHealth, OptumInsight and OptumRx – representing more than 35,000 employees worldwide who collaborate to deliver integrated, intelligent solutions that work to modernize the health system and improve overall population health.