Please note: Friday, August 24, 2012
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today announced the final rule that makes the proposed one-year delay-from Oct. 1, 2013, to Oct. 1, 2014-final for the implementation of ICD-10.  

It seemed not so long ago we in the healthcare industry had the date ingrained into our brains -October 1, 2013 was THE day.  No delays, no exceptions!  We've been living and planning for this implementation date since it was first announced in January 2009.  For the better part of three years, many organizations have done significant amounts of preparatory work and invested many dollars to ensure their facility and its employees are steadily readying themselves for the transition from ICD-9-CM to ICD-10-CM/PCS.  

But, in February 2012, all gears came to a screeching halt when the acting CMS administrator Marilyn Tavenner agreed to reconsider the final implementation date.  This decision snowballed and created uncertainty, frustration, and concern over whether this new system will be put in place or not and when that date will be.  In response to the complaints by the American Medical Association (AMA), it was officially announced in April 2012 by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that they would like to propose that the implementation date be delayed one year to October 1, 2014. 

This proposed delay caused an eruption of opposing debates and laundry lists of why we should not delay the implementation date.  There were two big and respected voices that had opposing views for their own individual reasons, the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) and the American Medical Association (AMA.)  

The current coding system
AHIMA - ICD-9-CM is antiquated and broken
The ICD system was intended as a classification system that should be updated every 10 years.  To date, ICD-9-CM has surpassed its third decade of use (originally implemented in 1979).  Continuing to limp along with ICD-9-CM for any length of time jeopardizes the ultimate goal of cost savings by limiting the option of implementing more precise code descriptions rather than relying on unspecified or ambiguous code descriptions commonly seen in ICD-9-CM. 
An additional problem that exists is the limitation of space with ICD-9-CM.  Currently, when codes are considered for addition, the question of "Where do I place this code?" is often raised because it cannot be logically sequenced in the chapter in which it belongs. Lastly, the maintenance of using ICD-9-CM for a longer period of time means taking up precious time for the Coordination and Maintenance committees to discuss revisions, additions to both ICD-9-CM and ICD-10-CM/PCS. 

AMA -ICD-9-CM still works
The existing codes in ICD-9-CM should be sufficient and adding an exorbitant amount of new codes "does not increase the quality of care received by their patients."