Today, the US Senate voted to approve H.R. 4302, Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014, which included language delaying the implementation of ICD-10-CM/PCS by at least one year. The vote was 64 to 35 at 6:59 p.m. ET. The bill now moves to President Obama, who is expected to sign it into law.
The H.R. 4302 bill mainly creates a temporary "fix" to the Medicare sustainable growth rate (SGR). But a seven-line section of the bill states that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) cannot adopt the ICD–10 code set as the mandatory standard until at least October 1, 2015—a year after the October 1, 2014 implementation date for which the industry has been preparing.
The H.R. 4302 bill mainly creates a temporary "fix" to the Medicare sustainable growth rate (SGR). But a seven-line section of the bill states that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) cannot adopt the ICD–10 code set as the mandatory standard until at least October 1, 2015—a year after the October 1, 2014 implementation date for which the industry has been preparing.
AHIMA to Seek Immediate Clarification on Technical Issues
Effects of a one year delay include an estimated likely cost of $1 billion to $6.6 billion to the healthcare industry and lost opportunity costs for failing to move to a more effective code set. A cloud will also be cast over the employment prospects of more than 25,000 students who have learned to code exclusively in ICD-10 in HIM associate and baccalaureate educational programs. In a statement on the Senate vote, AHIMA officials said they will work to clarify outstanding questions raised by the delay and continue to work with government officials to implement ICD-10.
"On behalf of our more than 72,000 members who have prepared for ICD-10 in good faith, AHIMA will seek immediate clarification on a number of technical issues such as the exact length of the delay," said AHIMA CEO Lynne Thomas Gordon, MBA, RHIA, CAE, FACHE, FAHIMA. "AHIMA will continue our work with various public sector organizations and agencies such as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, and the National Center for Health Statistics, along with our industry partners such as the ICD-10 Coalition so that ICD-10 will realize its full potential to improve patient care and reduce costs. These are goals that AHIMA and other healthcare stakeholders and our government leaders all share."
AHIMA Thanks Members and ICD-10 Proponents for Remarkable Grassroots Fight
AHIMA thanks its members and other stakeholders for their efforts over the last six days to stop an ICD-10 implementation delay. Proponents of ICD-10 responded to AHIMA's call for a grassroots campaign by making nearly 10,000 phone calls and sending over 1,000 letters to their elected representatives, urging them to vote against an ICD-10 delay and to pass a clean SGR bill. ICD-10 supporters also took to social media, with messages on Twitter containing the hashtag #NoDelay numbering more than 5,000, including several thousand during this morning's hour-long virtual rally. During that hour, a flood of tweets on the topic of ICD-10 catapulted hashtag #ICD10 onto Twitter's "trending topics" list.
While today's vote has delayed ICD-10 implementation, AHIMA will be working to ensure that another delay does not occur legislatively. In the coming weeks, updates will be added to AHIMA's Advocacy Assistant with instructions on how members can continue to advocate for ICD-10.
For more on today's vote and what happens next, visit the Journal of AHIMA website.
