The US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced that the use of the International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision (ICD 10) will begin on October 1, 2015, which—according to CMS—is the soonest possible date allowed in a law passed by Congress earlier this year. The American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) reports that the news came by way of an acknowledgement in the CMS rule on inpatient and long-term hospital payments released recently.

In the Request for Public Comments on the ICD-10 transition, CMS writes, “The ICD-10-CM/PCS transition is scheduled to take place on October 1, 2015. After that date, we will collect nonelectronic health record-based quality measure data coded only in ICD-10-CM/PCS.”

According to the APTA news release, CMS will be issuing an interim final rule that will establish the October 2015 implementation date in the near future. The rule will also require entities covered by Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) to continue to use ICD-9-CM through September 30, 2015. CMS also announced that it is cancelling the end-to-end testing program scheduled for July 2014. A new testing program will begin next year.

The APTA news release notes that the US Department of Health Human Services (HHS) originally set an October 1, 2013 date for implementation of ICD-10 for all HIPAA-covered entities. HHS then announced in the spring of 2012 that it was moving that date back 1 year to October 2014. Lastly, early this year, Congress included language in Medicare-related legislation delaying ICD-10 implementation until some point after October 1, 2015. This legislation also prevented implementation of the sustainable growth rate (SGR).

For additional information about the ICD-10 implementation, visit http://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Coding/ICD10.

[Source: APTA]