Medscape reports that almost 25 percent  of  physicians’ offices said in a survey they won’t be ready when the new, more complex International Classification of Diseases, 10th edition (ICD-10),  arrives Oct. 1.  Another 25 percent said  that they weren’t  sure if  they’d  be ready.

“The latest Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI) survey also found that only about 20 percent of physician practices have started or completed external testing. That percentage is up from the 10 percent of physicians who said they had done external testing in results released in March.”

Robert Tennant, vice chairman of the WEDI group and government affairs senior policy adviser for the Medical Group Management Association,  told Medscape that the survey indicates  big trouble.

“The physician side of the provider community — they’re really struggling,” Tennant said. “I think the government has not done a very good job about explaining the return on investment for physicians; it’s not clear at all why we’re doing this.”

“Also, many are at the mercy of their software vendors,” he said, noting  that if the software isn’t up to date, physicians can’t submit the codes or test the systems.

“What that tells us in the industry is that we’re looking at potentially a healthcare.gov situation, where the light switch is flipped and things don’t work,” he said.