Organized medicine gets ICD-10 delay to October 2014

The Dept. of Health and Human Services officially delayed by one year the deadline for physicians to start using new diagnosis code sets to bill patient care.

Organized medicine had argued for a minimum delay of two years from the scheduled Oct. 1, 2013, date for doctors and hospitals to be using ICD-10 diagnosis codes, but federal officials finalized the one-year delay they proposed in April.

The transition from the current ICD-9 code sets to the more advanced ICD-10 presents a significant and costly challenge to physician practices, doctors have said. ICD-10 has about 68,000 diagnostic codes, while ICD-9 has only 13,000. Practices will have to upgrade health information technology systems and train staff to learn new codes that apply to various specialties. The switch also is complicated by a number of concurrent federal mandates to adopt electronic health records and participate in quality programs, some of which involve the use of diagnostic codes.

“The implementation of ICD-10 will create more challenges for physicians when our Medicare system is broken and cannot provide adequate funding to cover the cost of these additional administrative burdens,” said Steven J. Stack, MD, chair of the American Medical Association’s Board of Trustees.

The one-year delay is not the final action on this issue, Dr. Stack said. He noted that the Obama administration has indicated it would “engage stakeholders on a wide variety of ICD-10 implementation issues, including reduction of burden on physician practices.”

Medical group administrators are urging the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to test ICD-10 before enforcing a move to it. A trial program would ensure that the health care industry is prepared when the new codes start being required on medical claims, said Susan Turney, MD, president and CEO of MGMA-ACMPE, the entity formed by the merger of the Medical Group Management Assn. and the American College of Medical Practice Executives. “We are not confident that critical trading partners, including Medicare and state Medicaid plans, will be ready in time to conduct testing well in advance of the October 2014 compliance date.”

Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2012/09/03/gvbf0903.htm.