According to CMS, the transition from the ICD-9 to the ICD-10 diagnosis coding system is set to occur on October 1, 2105.  The ICD-10 transition was originally scheduled for October 1, 2013, but has been delayed a number of times—most recently by the Protecting Access to Medicare Act, which the President signed into law on April 1, 2014.  As we recently reported, a provision of that law delayed the transition until at least October 1, 2015.  Given recent statements in CMS’s April 30 Proposed IPPS Rule, however, the agency does not intent to extend the deadline beyond that date. 

References to the ICD-10 roll-out in the nearly 1,700-page proposed rule are relatively sparse, but CMS is clear in its statements that the transition will occur on October 1, 2015.  For example, in a section addressing proposed risk-standardized payment measures, CMS states that “ICD-10 will officially be implemented on October 1, 2015.”  Earlier in the proposed rule—in a section addressing the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) Program—CMS states that “[t]he ICD-10-CM [Clinical Modification]/PCS [Procedure Coding System] transition is scheduled to take place on October 1, 2015.”  CMS adds that, after October 1, 2015, it “will collect nonelectronic health record-based quality measure data coded only in ICD-10-CM/PCS.”  Due to its concerns regarding the impact of the transition on the Hospital VBP Program, CMS requests public comments on how to best address the transition in the context of the program.

To read more about the ICD-10 implementation in the Proposed IPPS Rule, click here.

Reporter, Greg Sicilian, Atlanta, +1 404 572 2810, gsicilian@kslaw.com.