The American Health Information Management Association has reversed its support of HHS' proposed timeline for ICD-10 code set adoption and now is asking for an additional year to make the transition, Modern Healthcare reports (DoBias, Modern Healthcare, 10/27).
In August, HHS issued a proposed rule that would require health care providers to adopt ICD-10 code sets for electronic health transactions by October 2011. Health care providers currently use ICD-9 code sets, which were developed about 30 years ago and no longer can be expanded effectively to include codes for new diseases and procedures.
ICD-9 can accommodate about 17,000 codes, while ICD-10 has space for more than 155,000 codes (iHealthBeat, 8/18).
At a media event earlier this month, AHIMA CEO Linda Kloss said the group is confident that health care providers can meet the October 2011 deadline based on the government's plan to publish a final rule this year (iHealthBeat, 10/14).
However, in an Oct. 20 letter to HHS, AHIMA called for a three-year buffer and an Oct. 1, 2012, deadline. The letter also called on the government to quickly release a final rule so the industry can begin implementation efforts.
Dan Rode, vice president for policy and government affairs at AHIMA, said, "Our concern was from talking to providers and vendors of all different sorts that the three-year timeline was necessary," adding, "Given that the (HHS deadline) is already less than three years away, we didn't feel like we could continue with that date" (Modern Healthcare, 10/27).
Other Groups
Representatives from the Medical Group Management Association, the American Medical Association and America's Health Insurance Plans also have said three years is not enough time to transition to ICD-10 code sets (iHealthBeat, 8/20).
The American Hospital Association and Premier are backing HHS' proposal to transition to ICD-10 code sets, arguing that the new codes would enhance IT and patient safety (iHealthBeat, 10/23).