We are happy to report that this transition has been very successful. All of the planning and training has made for a smooth conversion to ICD-10. To date, we have not seen any missing claims or claims denied for invalid diagnosis codes. The only change we have seen is slightly longer claims processing times by the insurance companies.

For field providers, the key to ICD-10 is documenting the full clinical details of the patient. Documentation that thoroughly describes the patient's current condition allows our billers to accurately code the claim for best reimbursement. We appreciate the good documentation we receive from your crews. If documentation is unclear, our billing staff will contact you for additional information.

HIPAA requires that all information containing PII (Personally Identifiable Information) be handled with extreme care and only shared with those who have a valid need for it. For more detailed info about cyber security, click here. Regular email is not considered a secure method of transfer for patient names or other identifying info, so Systems Design uses a Secure email process thru Microsoft that encrypts any emails (and their attachments) that contain patient info. We realize that this may not be as convenient as regular email, but it is compliant with HIPAA requirements. It also avoids potential penalties and patient info breaches. When an encrypted mail is sent to you for the first time, you will need to establish log-in credentials for yourself that will be valid for any mail sent from the @sdwems.com email server from then onward. If you have trouble accessing Secure emails from Systems Design, please contact our IT Dept at (800) 585-5242 to discuss what may be causing the problem, since this is a vital part of our communications with clients.

If you need to send an email to Systems Design that will contain patient info, please contact your intended recipient and they will send you a blank encrypted mail to which you can reply (with any attachments). Your email will return to the sender in our encrypted format. Also remember to use commonsense precautions such as not entering the patient's name in the subject line.

Many of you are aware that you can access a menu of reports through Systems Design's website and are already doing so successfully.  The menu of reports available to each log-in can be customized, such that financial staff can access only financial reports, while other staff may review patient accounts and financial info.  With Web report access, you can run all the standard month-end reports for any date range you wish, as well as several other statistical reports that are more useful if run over a longer time frame.  If you are interested in using this feature, please contact Shelley Brewington (ShelleyB@sdwems.com) to request log-in credentials for you or others in your organization.

At Systems Design, when we receive these calls or faxes we immediately clarify that negotiating public funds is not an option.

Please remain alert to this tactic. Be on the lookout especially for faxes as this seems to be the most common method of contact for these organizations. Attached are a few samples received at our office. Simply disregard any such faxes received at your office. In addition, if anyone contacts you by phone to negotiate your claims, please decline or refer them to our office; we will gladly take care of these calls for you!