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The calendar may say the ICD-10 transition is long gone, but practices still will likely feel its repercussions in 2017 in terms of payer requests, denials and the new code set’s influence on value-based care. Looking to next year...

Imagine going on Amazon, buying an Electronic Spin the Bottle Game for its listed price of $32.92, receiving the product (sparing the arduous effort required to spin the bottle) and then several weeks later receiving an additional bill for $600. As indicated in a recent study, that’s basically what’s happening in heathcare…quite frequently.

My health insurance plan jumped 24 percent this fall and dropped in quality of coverage. I’m not alone. Rising health insurance costs across the nation have many people worried. A recent 50-state poll released by the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease revealed that 77 percent of consumers have experienced difficulty using their health insurance in the last year, and the impact of health premiums on budgets is a top concern for families.

On October 1, the grace period for allowing providers to submit “less-than specific” codes ran out. If you recall, when ICD-10-CM went live in 2015, the federal government gave providers a transitional year to adjust to the shiny new code set, get educated and hone their skills at making specific diagnoses.

All is well, right? Not quite.