Coalition urges CMS to name new ICD-10 transition date now

A broad group of healthcare industry stakeholders involved in the transition to International Classification of Diseases 10th Revision (ICD-10) coding system are urging the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to name Oct. 1, 2015 — the soonest possible date for the transition — as the new date for the change.

The Protecting Access to Medicare Act that created a temporary fix to the sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula that would have cut physician payments also prohibited CMS from adopting ICD-10 prior to October 2015. As a result of the way the ICD-10 delay was written into the law, CMS is free to pick any date after Oct. 1, 2015, as the new date.

However, every day of additional delay only increases disruption and the costs of the transition warned the nine groups behind the letter. They include: the Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed), the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), the BlueCross BlueShield Association, the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), the Health IT Now Coalition, the Medical Device Manufacturers Association (MDMA) and 3M Health Information Systems

“[Coalition] organizations have already expended an enormous amount of time, effort and resources in preparing for the transition to ICD-10 in accordance with the original timeline given by [the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] … A 30 percent cost increase due to a one-year delay is consistent with the experience and observations of the coalition members,” the letter addressed to CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner stated.

Additional downsides to the delay brought up in the letter included the disruptive impact it will have on healthcare reform as well as on the education of new coders and health information management professionals, many of which are graduating from programs that have already switched to only teaching ICD-10 coding.