CMS sets Oct. 1, 2015 as ICD-10 compliance date

After one month of uncertainty, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) formally announced the new ICD-10 compliance date: Oct. 1, 2015.

The Department of Health & Human Services is planning to release an interim final rule in the near future that will include the new compliance date, according to a CMS statement. “The rule will also require HIPAA-covered entities to continue to use ICD-9-CM through Sept. 30, 2015."

The release of the date follows intense pressure from industry for CMS to define a new timeframe for ICD-10 compliance after the passage of the SGR patch, which delayed it for “at least one year.”

Within hours of the announcement, the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), which had been urging for clarification throughout April, issued a statement applauding CMS for providing clarity on the matter.  

“All along, AHIMA has urged our members to ‘stay the course’ of preparing for implementation. During the coming year, we recommend that the industry keep its momentum going, continuing to prepare by strengthening clinical documentation improvement programs, working with vendors on transition readiness, training coders and other stakeholders and proceeding with dual coding,” according to the association.

“AHIMA has long been a proponent of ICD-10 implementation and we have offered a variety of information, training and support to help the industry prepare. We particularly want to reach out to the physician community and are prepared to support programs such as the field support training for small physician practices proposed by CMS,” wrote AHIMA.

“First and foremost, we’re happy to see the date emerge,” Jeffrey Smith, senior director of federal affairs at the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives, told Clinical Innovation + Technology. “Previously we’ve always been supportive of the Oct. 1, 2014, deadline, and we were disappointed seeing it pushed back.”

What he’s hearing from CIOs is that it’s not so much the date that matters, but instilling confidence that the date will not be moved back again. “On the government side, one thing for CMS to do is to lend credence to the new date. We’re fighting folks who don’t believe that the date is really the date,” he said. “CMS needs to stay visible with education and testing and keep ICD-10 on everybody’s radar to help keep the confidence of the industry.”

Already a significant portion of CHIME members were “more than ready” for the 2014 deadline, and many institutions already have been dual coding for weeks and sometimes months, he said.

“We’re recommending to members that they keep their schedule to what they have budgeted,” he said. With the extra time, he said, prepared organizations will really hone in on clinical documentation improvement, entailing more granular information gathering to detect and remedy gaps in care.