WASHINGTON – The transition to the ICD-10 coding set should take place as planned on Oct. 1, witnesses testified at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Health.
The message was welcome to committee leadership, who invited testimony almost solely from experts who support that position.
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Subcommittee members from both sides of the aisle expressed a desire to not delay the implementation any further, though some at the Feb. 11 hearing questioned whether the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services was ready for the transition.
Subcommittee member Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas), an ob.gyn., said he had no questions about the readiness of Medicare contractors and insurance companies for the transition, but “all roads eventually lead to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. And if you will pardon me, that does appear to be a weak link in the chain because from HealthCare.gov to the Sunshine Act reporting website, when CMS flips a switch, something breaks.”
While no representative from the CMS testified, a recent report from the Government Accountability Office suggested that the agency is positioned to make the transition to ICD-10 by the Oct. 1 deadline, although continued testing is warranted. That report was commissioned by the Senate Finance Committee, which also expressed support for an Oct. 1 start date for ICD-10.
Kristi Matus, chief financial and administrative officer for Athenahealth, testified to the general readiness of the health IT community to make the switch to ICD-10. The government should either “maintain the current date for ICD-10 implementation or cancel it once and for all. Pull the trigger or pull the plug,” Ms. Matus said.
Dr. William J. Terry Sr., a urologist from Mobile, Ala., testified on behalf of the American Urological Association and expressed concern that not all physicians are ready. He suggested that a transition period might allow physicians and other providers to run ICD-9 and ICD-10 simultaneously to ensure that physicians do not inadvertently lose any payments because of coding errors that might occur as they learn the new system.