Eli's Hospice Insider

One-year delay to new diagnosis coding set gives providers some breathing room.

Now that the feds have made it clear that hospices need to pay careful attention to their patients' diagnosis coding, you should circle a new date in red on your planning calendar.

In a final rule published in the Sept. 5 Federal Register, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services finalizes its proposed one-year delay to implementation of the new ICD-10 diagnosis coding set. CMS had announced a delay of unspecified length in February, then in April proposed the one-year deadline bump to October 2014.

"The change in the compliance date is intended to give covered healthcare providers and other covered entities more time to prepare and fully test their systems to ensure a smooth and coordinated transition by all covered entities," CMS notes in the rule. The one-year delay gives providers a break but also minimizes disruption and costs a longer postponement would cause.

"ICD-10-CM/PCS implementation is inevitable, but today's news gives the healthcare community the certainty and clarity it needs to move forward with implementation, testing, and training," says the American Health Information Management Association in a release.

Bright side: While providers wait on ICD-10 implementation, no ICD-9-CM diagnosis code updates are planned for ICD-9 2013 (effective Oct. 1, 2012). There's a freeze in place until ICD-10-CM replaces ICD-9-CM.

Potential changes for the annual ICD-9-CM update usually appear at this time of year in CMS's Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) proposed rule, but this year's IPPS indicated you won't have to deal with any changes. Providers can focus on ICD-10 prep instead.