Welcome Guest!

Member Login |

Why subscribe to BC Advantage Magazine?

---

 

ICD-10 delay -- until ICD-11?

On the planned ICD-10 delay, nobody knows anything, which makes speculation irresistible. Now some are saying: Maybe we can skip ICD-10 completely.

At The Health Care Blog, Tom Sullivan asks, "If HHS Delays ICD-10 Long Enough, Could the U.S. Adopt ICD-11 Instead?"

ICD-11? Why not? The World Health Organization is already working on it. Healthcare IT News refers to it as "in the wings"; people have been doing presentations on it since 2008 at least.

The experts Sullivan talks to suspect this ICD-10 delay will be on the long side. "The fact that [Tavenner] mentioned going through a rule making process implies to us that this will take a long time, says Anthelio Healthcare CMO Wendy Whittington.

"Should the U.S. delay the ICD-10 compliance deadline just one year, until 2014, then the WHO will have a beta of ICD-11 ready," says Sullivan. "...this weeks announcement that ICD-10 will be pushed back again holds at least a nugget of potential that the horizon is broadening to include two ICD options, if not simultaneously, than certainly in rapid succession."

ICD-10 Watch asks, "Why move to ICD-10, if ICD-11 is on the horizon?" but the feedback they get is mostly negative; for one thing, "ICD-10 is critical to all the health initiatives" in the Accountable Care Act, such as HIPAA 5010 and meaningful use, says Sue Bowman of AHIMA. "There's no point in doing any of that if the data that is being pushed out is in ICD-9 format. Also, another expert notes, even in ICD-11 is in beta by 2014, it still won't be ready to use until "well after 2020."

Even if the ACA gets overturned, unless the U.S. gets entirely out of medicine, the chances of skipping ICD-10 seem remote at best. Our own Ben Penn was on the scene when CMS' Marilyn Tavenner first revealed that CMS was thinking of delaying ICD-10 -- and he tells us that in the Q&A session she ruled out a skip-jump to ICD-11.

Don't feel too bad about it. From what we've heard about it, ICD-11 will be even more complex than ICD-10 -- and will require full EHR capabilities from all providers. If you're not ready for ICD-10, you're not ready for that.

Source: DecisionHealth Daily
For a concise daily summary of current events affecting reimbursement, regulatory compliance and operating costs for health services providers, opt-in to receive DecisionHealth Daily, a new service from DecisionHealth.
http://www.decisionhealth.com/communities/decisionhealth-daily.aspx

 

---