Article
ICD-10 deadline: GOP lawmakers working to keep October 2015 transition date
As medical practice owners continue to ready their practices for International Classification of Diseases-10th revision (ICD-10) implementation in October, lawmakers are still undecided as to whether another delay will be included in sustainable growth rate (SGR) legislation slated for the spring.
As medical practice owners continue to ready their practices for International Classification of Diseases-10th revision (ICD-10) implementation in October, lawmakers are still undecided as to whether another delay will be included in sustainable growth rate (SGR) legislation slated for the spring.
In December 2014, Republican leaders said that they are working with the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) to ensure that the October 2015 ICD-10 date isn’t changed.
“Following the most recent delay of ICD-10, we heard from a number of interested parties concerned about falling behind or halting progress…It is our priority to ensure that we continue to move forward in health care technology and do so in a way that addresses the concerns of all those affected and ensure that the system works,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) and House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (R-TX) said in a statement.
The lawmakers added that hearings about ICD-10 would be scheduled in 2015, though no date has been set.
MORE RESOURCES:Preparing for ICD-10
In November 2014, the Medical Society of the State of New York wrote to Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) requesting that ICD-10 implementation be delayed again until October 2017. The society cited costs and the increased number of codes as reasons that the healthcare community needs more time to implement the system.
“The National Physicians’ Council for Healthcare Policy and physicians from innumerable state and national medical organizations and specialty societies have come together to ask for a 2 year delay in the implementation of ICD-10 until October, 2017 in order to allow for physicians to work thru the myriad of new government regulations that face us. The costs of the new ICD-10 coding and billing mandates scheduled for October of 2015 will force financial disruptions and chaos. Patients will lose their doctors!” the New York medical society wrote in the letter.
At the end of 2014, the American Medical Association and its regional chapters unsuccessfully lobbied lawmakers to include another ICD-10 delay in an appropriations bill.
