On Aug. 24, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) finalized a proposed one-year delay for ICD-10 compliance, officially setting the deadline to Oct. 1, 2014. HHS confirmed the deadline while announcing the establishment of a unique health plan identifier, a new health care standard that stems from the Affordable Care Act.
In April, HHS announced that "some provider groups have expressed serious concerns about their ability to meet the October 1, 2013 compliance date" and recommended a one-year delay of the ICD-10 implementation deadline. During the American Medical Association advocacy meeting earlier this year, acting Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Marilyn Tavenner told reporters that the CMS would "re-examine the timeframe" of the implementation, partially due to confusion surrounding Version 5010. On Feb. 16, HHS officially announced its initiation of the process to delay the compliance date.
The ICD-9 code sets used to report medical diagnoses and inpatient procedures were originally set to be replaced by ICD-10 code sets on Oct. 1, 2013. The revised deadline is now Oct. 1, 2014. To accommodate the ICD-10 code structure, the transaction standards used for electronic health care claims, Version 4010/4010A, were required to be upgraded to Version 5010 by Jan. 1, 2012.
The ACC has continually been educating its members about the switch in the coding classification system for diseases from ICD-9 to ICD-10. The health care system will go from using 17,000 diagnosis and procedure codes to using over 155,000. Because of the longer codes, the transaction standards used for electronic health care claims, Version 4010/4010A, had to be upgraded to Version 5010 by Jan. 1, 2012.
The following resources are intended to help you understand and prepare for the ICD-10 transition.
ACC members can stay tuned to CardioSource and The ACC Advocate for additional details and updates. To receive up-to-date information from the ACC’s Advocacy Twitter account, follow @Cardiology.