According to AHIMA, CMS estimates that a one year delay could cost $1 billion to $6.6 billion, “which is approximately 10-30 percent of what has already been invested by providers, payers, vendors, and academic programs…” But it’s not just about the financial loss. It is predicted that there will be immense financial ramifications to this postponement. It’s unclear now what those who have adequately prepared will be required to do next year, but those who have procrastinated or simply haven’t had the resources to prepare, are undoubtedly relieved that they have more time to get ready and test their systems. For them, this could mean lost momentum along with the lost time and money they have spent on their preparation efforts. Healthcare providers, hospitals, health plans, software companies, practice administrators, and certified coders all over the country have spent countless hours and dollars preparing for what was to be the last deadline to start utilizing this new diagnosis coding system. ICD-10, which has been delayed several times, was scheduled to be implemented on October 1, 2014. This comes just a month after CMS administrator, Marilyn Tavenner, adamantly stated, “There are no more delays and the system will go live October 1.” This was during a keynote address at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society in late February. Buried in this bill in Section 212, is a brief statement that the “Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) cannot implement the ICD-10 code set until October 1, 2015”. This Medicare payment band-aid, or “doc fix” as it’s commonly referred to, has been applied 17 times in the past 11 years to prevent Medicare payment cuts to healthcare providers. Click here to take our brief, confidential survey and share with us how you think your practice or organization might be impacted by this postponement of ICD-10.Īpproved by both the House and the Senate and signed into law by President Obama, the HR 4302 Bill – Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014, will implement another temporary one-year fix to the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) for Medicare payments.
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