Part B Insider (Multispecialty) Coding Alert

Medicare has extended its ICD-9 code freeze through Oct. 1, 2015, but that doesn’t mean your diagnosis coding updating will be on hold until then.

Reminder: CMS has said for Oct. 1, 2014, there will be limited code updates to both the ICD-9 and ICD-10 code sets to capture new technologies and diseases. For Oct. 1, 2015, there will be limited code updates to ICD-10 code sets to capture new technologies and diagnoses, but no updates to ICD-9.

Then, regular updates to ICD-10 begin on Oct. 1, 2016.

“What we do know is that, despite ongoing code freezes, changes have been made in the ICD-10-CM code set including changes to instructions in the tabular list, corrections to the alphabetical index and tweaks to the guidelines themselves,” says coding expert Lisa Selman-Holman of Selman-Holman & Associates and CoDR — Coding Done Right in Denton, Texas. “So don’t kid yourself that nothing is new.”