CHIME Urges HHS for the ICD-10 Implementation

Health IT Community Urges HHS for New ICD-10 Date

The reaction by the health IT community to the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) postponement of the ICD-10 implementation has been a mixed bag, with many leaders fearing that the delay could disrupt their health IT plans and cause the time and money they have already spent to meet the original October 1, 2013 deadline to go to waste.

ICD-10, the new and more extensive medical coding set, was to be implemented in the U.S. on October 1, 2013, but the debut was pushed back to an unspecified future date. Medical facilities and medical practices—as well as providers of medical billing and coding training—all over the country had been prepping for ICD-10 for some time before the postponement.

The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) asked that HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius act decisively when she takes the next steps that will guide the health IT community migrate from ICD-9 to ICD-10 code sets. "We strongly urge HHS to move quickly and decisively in setting a new compliance date for converting to ICD-10," CHIME president and CEO Richard Correll exhorted in a letter to Sebelius.

"Providers have spent millions preparing for a deadline set over three years in advance. Technology has been upgraded, new processes implemented, new hires made, and new education and training regimes established. This announcement has created a level of uncertainty that threatens much of the progress already made by many hospitals and clinics across the country," Correll added.

Meditec.com, like other providers of medical billing and coding training—as well as medical transcription training and pharmacy technician classes—provides the coursework the medical coding community needs to be ready for ICD-10.