The official U.S. launch of ICD-10 has come and gone. Some folks were happy to see this finally happen, while others were pretty angry that it was not further delayed. Love it or hate it, I think there is one thing everyone can agree on -- among the 68,000+ billing codes in ICD-10, there are some pretty weird (and hilarious) things to be found. In this article, we’re going to have a bit of fun by looking at what I consider to be the top ten oddest and most hilarious billing codes in ICD-10.

According to EHR Software BuyerView 2015, a survey conducted by Software Advice, the number of physicians switching EHR systems has grown exponentially over the past year. Since 2010, the majority of physicians (63 percent) purchasing EHRs were looking to replace paper systems, mainly due to government regulations. However, that trend has been reversed now as approximately 60 percent of EHR buyers are already using EHRs.

If, like me, you spent way too much time searching “ICD-10 Launch” on the internet yesterday… you probably (also like me) saw a lot of panic-inciting and/or fear-inducing blogs and opinion articles that made it sound as if yesterday’s transition to ICD-10 in the United States was going to be the medical coding equivalent of the apocalypse. Today, I am happy to report that the U.S. ICD-10 transition has been about as “apocalyptic” as the Y2K panic was back in 2000 (which, as most of you probably remember, was not an apocalypse).

Way back in 1983, well over 30 years ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) began drafting the 10th Edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10). It took them just shy of a decade to actually finish the thing, of course, which they finally released in 1992. The transition from ICD-9 did not happen overnight, though… not by a longshot. In fact, it would take a number of years before most countries started using it.

Last week, the American Medical Association and other medical societies let their voices be heard in regard to Meaningful Use and the proposed rules for Stage 3. Via a letter to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the AMA urged the government to delay the Meaningful Use Stage 3 rollout. It now appears these medical societies have additional support for the Stage 3 delay as more than 100 members of Congress have signed a letter of their own, asking for a hold in the Stage 3 rollout.

A growing number of physicians are implementing electronic medical records (EMR) in their respective practices. The increase in EMR adoption, however, also brings a great chance of dissatisfaction in current solutions, whether it's merely one feature or the entire software. Capterra conducted a survey to measure EMR usage and to dive into the details of why physicians are switching.

Despite the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently submitting Meaningful Use Stage 3 final rules to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review, prominent medical societies are asking the government to delay the Stage 3 rollout.

In the early development of EMR systems, a surprisingly small amount of vendors seem to have anticipated just how important the ability to offer integration between EMR and Practice Management (PM) software would become in only a few short years. These days, using a fully integrated EMR and PM solution is not viewed as a mere convenience—it has quickly become the standard in Dermatology.