Every summer, CMS provides files that contain information on the ICD-10-CM updates for the upcoming fiscal year. ThoroughCare has created a new automated process that aims to help end users prepare for these changes and prevent any billing discrepancies.

Overview of Updates

New Patient Flag

Continued Updates

List of Deprecated ICD-10 Codes

On September 1st, ThoroughCare will automatically update supported ICD-10 codes. At that point, any codes considered deprecated by CMS will be marked as deprecated in ThoroughCare. This means that users will no longer be able to add these ICD-10 codes to their patients; the code cannot be added to the patient's diagnosis history, they will not appear in the recommended ICD-10 codes dropdown for conditions, and they will not be pulled in from integrated EHR's.

If there are patients who have a deprecated ICD-10 code as a part of their clinical data at the time of the release, the code will not be automatically removed. Instead, they will follow the flow defined in the next section.

ThoroughCare has introduced a new system-generated flag titled "Review ICD-10" that will be attached to any patient with a deprecated code. The flag is a gradient flag, which indicates that it's system-generated. All deprecated codes will be displayed in the flag's hover-over.

This flag cannot be removed manually by users. For the flag to be removed, the code must be removed from two places. The code must be removed from the "Diagnosis Code" section of "Conditions:

It must also be marked inactive in the patient's "Diagnosis History":

Once the deprecated code is marked inactive, it cannot be reactivated. The checkbox will be greyed out and the user will see the following hover-over message:

When all deprecated codes are removed or marked as inactive, the flag will be removed from the patient.

CMS does not provide exact mappings for the codes that are removed. Therefore, the ThoroughCare clinical team must review the list of removed and new codes manually to determine if any new codes should be recommended for a ThoroughCare condition. The team continues to work through the list and aims to have all conditions updated with new recommended codes (if applicable) by the end of September.

Below are the ICD-10 Codes that are no longer supported by CMS, and are therefore marked as deprecated in ThoroughCare. You can also find the full list here.

To access other helpful ThoroughCare articles in the Knowledge Base or to get help from the ThoroughCare Support team members, click the ‘i’ icon in the top right corner of the software next to the username and use the appropriate link!