Part B Insider (Multispecialty) Coding Alert

Plus: Diagnosis freeze may thaw.

Although many practices were eager to hear news about CMS’s ICD-10 testing and whether it was successful, the agency was mum on the issue for what seemed like an eternity—until now. 

During a meeting of the Standards Subcommittee of the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics (NCVHS) last month, CMS’s Denesecia Green denied that end-to-end testing was permanently cancelled—instead referring to the testing as simply being delayed. “There will be testing,” Green said to the group. 

In addition, the agency’s John Evangelist said that the March 3-7 ICD-10 testing was quite successful, with 127,000 ICD-10 claims finding their way through the fee-for-service claims system. The national average for claims success was 89 percent, although some regions successfully processed 99 percent of the claims submitted. Among the 2,600 entities that submitted ICD-10 claims during testing, more than 50 percent were clearinghouses, and the rest were physician practices, hospitals, labs, ASCs, dialysis facilities, billers, home health providers and ambulance services.

For more on the ICD-10 transition that will take place on Oct. 1, 2015, visit the ICD-10 website at www.cms.gov/medicare/coding/icd10.