ICD-10 Implementation Delayed

The implementation of the ICD-10 (International Classification of Diseases 10th Edition) diagnostic and procedural coding system has been pushed back indefinitely. This, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

ICD-10, endorsed by the World Health Organization and already the medical coding standard in a number of countries, was to debut finally in the U.S. on Oct. 1, 2013 replacing the erstwhile and increasingly inefficient standard, ICD-9. Medical facilities and medical practices—as well as providers of medical billing and coding training—all over the country had been scrambling to orient their staff to the huge body of new codes that ICD-10 was going to introduce, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), to modernize healthcare delivery.

But some major healthcare providers and organizations balked at the timetable and doubted the advantages that CMS was claiming for ICD-10. The American Medical Association (AMA), for one, urgently petitioned Congress to stop the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act's implementation of ICD-10.  

This February, HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that the federal government has delayed the implementation of ICD-10. Sebelius explained that they were acting on providers' concerns regarding the administrative burdens ICD-10 would impose on them over the next few years. “We are committing to work with the provider community to reexamine the pace at which HHS and the nation implement these important improvements to our health care system."

Sue Bowman, director of Coding Policy and Compliance at the American Health Information Management Association, however, said that the need for replacement for ICD-9 remains. "Actually, the need for high-quality healthcare data has gotten bigger now with meaningful use and payment reform and value-based purchasing and ACOs and all the other initiatives."

However, proponents of ICD-10, including providers of medical billing and coding training, are raising some concerns about the delay—the second one, in fact, for the new and vastly expanded diagnostic and procedural coding system. Bowman, herself, warned that the delay in the implementation of ICD-10 delays the other benefits of better healthcare data. "Until we have a better coding system we can't really have a better healthcare system and achieve the goals of all of these other initiatives because they all pretty much come down to better data," she said. 

Bowman emphasized that implementing ICD-10 together with the other initiatives, including electronic medical records, accountable care organizations, and bundled payments, is the way to go. “I don't think we are going to see the anticipated benefits of all of the other initiatives unless we move to a better coding system."

Meanwhile, some health IT advocacy groups are strongly encouraging healthcare providers, payers, and technology vendors to push ahead with the ICD-10 compliance efforts that they have already started. The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), which earlier had taken issue with AMA’s stance and successful power play, is urging healthcare providers and practices to switch to ICD-10 as soon as they can despite the official postponement of its implementation.

However short or protracted the new lead time for the implementation of ICD-10 will be, Meditec.com, a major provider of medical billing and coding training—as well as medical transcription professional career training and pharmacy technician training—is continuing its efforts to get the medical coding community ready for the new ICD-10 environment.