Insurance company profits are ridiculous and hopefully this will force them to invest a lot of those profits in the American economy to do this work.
This is so moronic I don't know where to begin. How long have you worked in Healthcare IT? It's completely inaccurate to say that insurance companies are making ridiculous profits, and even if they were, who cares? Are you referring to any particular company? If so, which one? Are all types of health insurance companies making enormous profits, because I can tell you a lot of TPAs are losing business fast. Do you have any citations at all? All but the largest of insurance companies are struggling with compliance and investing in the American economy isn't the go-to solution. Try "investing in the Indian economy." Fixed that for you. I'm not making it up. It's not my personal theory. I work in the industry and see Americans lose their jobs every day due to cost pressures resulting from ill-conceived regulation. I don't disagree that the new code system will be beneficial, but the government took a disruptive approach in rolling it out.
they only have to change a few programs, over billing and other risks will be mitigated due to better identification of injuries.
Astoundingly inaccurate. The thing that people don't understand is that ICD-10 is not really an IT problem but an administration problem. Insurance companies must entirely redesign their benefit plans around the new code systems AND maintain payment neutrality at the same time, AND support dual code sets. Their adjudication platform vendors will be charging them massive amounts to upgrade and convert, not to mention their own resources. And when things go to hell, IT will be blamed because managers assumed that a one-to-one crosswalk was all that needed to be implemented. The cost of the conversion will be enormous for EVERYONE, and I predict the compliance deadline will be extended as a result.
Living on Earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free trip around the Sun.