Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN) today announced Clintegrity 360 | ICD-10 Education Services, a new, role-based education management program that provides healthcare professionals with the targeted ICD-10 guidance they need to fully understand and use new medical diagnosis codes before October 2014. Focusing on the clinical, technical and financial aspects of ICD-10, Nuance’s customized training helps physicians, coders and clinical documentation specialists (CDS) develop the advanced knowledge and skills they need to achieve success and avoid pitfalls in transitioning during the short time before ICD-10 goes into effect.

A recent survey conducted by the Medical Group Management Association found that nearly nine out of ten physicians cite that two of their greatest concerns regarding the ICD-10 transition are: changes to clinical documentation, and the loss of clinician productivity. The majority of physicians believe that the complexity of ICD-10 codes will make it much more difficult for them to document and choose the right diagnosis code. Nuance ICD-10 Education Services addresses these concerns by providing the only physician-led education solution with peer-to-peer training, demonstrations, and expert instruction that addresses the ICD-10 documentation requirements by medical specialty, enabling provider organizations to rapidly gain physician buy-in and optimum results.

Nuance’s unique approach teaches physicians salient ICD-10 examples for common cases they face every day, providing improvements in clinical documentation integrity and accuracy of ICD-10 codes, while continuing to focus on patient care.

“Our patients will benefit from the even better quality of care that stems from improving the clinical documentation that tells the patient’s story,” said Don Bignotti, MD, senior vice president and CMO, CHE Trinity Health. “We’ve had great success collaborating with Nuance’s physician leaders to educate our physicians on the importance of improved accuracy of documentation within the new world of ICD-10.”

“Educating physicians and arming them with the knowledge and tools to improve and streamline clinical documentation has become a focal point for healthcare institutions,” explains Dr. Paul Weygandt, M.D. vice president of physician services at Nuance. “They are realizing that long-term viability depends on their physicians’ ICD-10 knowledge and ability to leverage technology to provide quality, cost-effective patient care.”

A recent AHIMA study on ICD-10 preparedness shows there is no “silver bullet” for ICD-10 preparedness and success. It requires intense collaboration across an organization and a need to balance time, money, and human resource investments in several areas, includingcomputer-assisted coding (CAC), clinical documentation improvement (CDI), education, and audits. Because ICD-10 is a clinical documentation challenge that begins with physicians at the point of care, subsequently impacting other teams, Nuance Clintegrity 360 | ICD-10 Education Services provides a 360-degree program for helping physicians, coders and clinical documentation specialists to understand new requirements and create accurate and ICD-10-compliant clinical documentation.

For example, Nuance’s customized education program for clinical documentation specialists assesses their understanding of ICD-10 requirements, and ensures that they are prepared to work directly with physicians to help them adhere to the increased complexity of clinical documentation. Additionally, Nuance provides advanced coder skill-building education, which helps advanced coders learn and retain new ICD-10 requirements for diagnoses and procedures and apply this knowledge to high-risk, high-return diagnoses and surgical procedures.

Nuance’s ICD-10 Education Services are part of the larger Clintegrity 360 offering that enables customers to use a single, web-based platform for computer-assisted coding, compliance and CDI. This intelligent system revolutionizes the clinical documentation process with a simpler, end-to-end solution that provides a more natural and efficient way for clinicians to rapidly create more complete and compliant clinical documentation within their existing workflow while simultaneously improving coding and downstream revenue cycle and quality reporting processes.

For more information on how Nuance Clintegrity 360 | ICD-10 Education Services can help hospitals and physician practices simplify the ICD-10 transition, visit: www.nuance.com.