Addressing ICD-10 Learning Needs Among Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Students

Experienced and novice healthcare providers alike need to understand how to correctly bill for their services and avoid billing errors. Healthcare academic programs are not meeting the learning needs of students when it comes to billing and documentation. As many as 86% of specialty healthcare providers reported inadequate training on patient billing. The purpose of this project was to create and pilot an online learning module on ICD-10 for primary care nurse practitioner (PCNP) students. An evaluation before and after the educational ICD-10 module was implemented to measure knowledge gained on billing and documentation as they enter professional practice. The objectives of this project were: 1) Summarize current approaches to ICD-10 training for future and current healthcare providers, 2) Create and pilot an online ICD-10 learning module for PCNP students, 3) Share ICD-10 module and pilot results with a local nursing program to explore the potential of adding a module to existing PCNP curriculum, and 4) Disseminate project to peers through professional poster or podium presentation. A literature review revealed several common factors, such as providers' struggle to consistently bill appropriately with consequent results including lost revenue, trouble meeting overhead cost, and billing errors. Studies indicate that organized understanding of patient procedure billing is vital to healthcare providers. Despite the importance of accurate billing, students receive little training addressing correct patient billing. This project was implemented by creating student pre/post-tests, evaluation, and voiceover PowerPoint presentations on ICD-10 that include essential information in overall patient billing and care. The pilot learning module was presented to third year primary care nurse practitioner doctoral students (N=13) with results showing significant gains in ICD-10 knowledge (p value =.001). The pre- and post-test scores were calculated using the t-test and Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test due to the sample size and both tests used p= .05 as the criterion for significance. The scholarly project was presented to a local college of nursing primary care faculty. The faculty agreed that there is a need in the curriculum for an ICD-10 learning module and interested in adding it to a student resource bank. The dissemination of this project was completed via abstract submission to the 40th Snowbird CME Conference held in Utah.