Text of a bill by Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, to delay the switch to ICD-10 diagnostic coding surfaced on Monday, in which it requests further study on the disruption on healthcare providers could face resulting from the replacement of ICD-9.
The three-page bill, H.R. 2126, was proposed on April 30 but the text was not posted for over a week.
The bill would prohibit the Secretary of Health and Human Services from replacing ICD-9 with ICD-10 on Oct. 1, as is scheduled. It has been referred to the Committees on Energy and Commerce, and Ways and Means, with no guarantee that it will be heard by either committee.
It asks for a study by the Comptroller General of the United States, in consultation with stakeholders in the medical community, to conduct a study to identify steps that can be taken to mitigate the disruption ICD-10 would have on healthcare providers.
The bill stipulates that not later than six months after the date of enactment, the Comptroller General submit to each House of Congress a report on the study and include recommendations for legislative and administrative steps appropriate to mitigate the disruption.
“This Act may be cited as the ‘Cutting Costly Codes Act of 2015,’” according to the bill’s text.
Previous delays have held up implementation of ICD-10, but most healthcare providers support implementation.
The American Medical Association, however, backs an ICD-10 delay, calling the switch a burden to physicians that takes away from their focus on care. It is also costly to implement, and that will result in lost reimbursement as ICD-10 adds thousands of billing codes, the AMA said.
The bill has six co-sponsors: Blake Farenthold, R-Texas; Mike Rogers, R-Alabama; Mo Brooks, R- Alabama; Morgan Griffith, R-Virginia; Tom Price, R-Georgia; and David Roe, R-Tennessee.
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Photo courtesy of: Medical Coding News
Originally published on: Health Care Finance
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The health care industry has already spent millions of dollars preparing for ICD-10.
This money was used to update antiquated systems and train personnel. The only hold ups are the physicians who don’t want to spend the money to retrain office personnel. It isn’t going to impact them from a billing standpoint, because they use CPT for professional reimbursement. (Even though the ICD-10 procedural code set (PCS) is a superior tool). The AMA owns CPT and have had the promise from HHS and the other cooperating parties that ICD-10 will not supplant CPT for professional billing so their cash cow will remain inviolate.
No surprise that this bill originates with a representative of the most reactionary, hide bound and darned right paranoid state in the union, or that the sponsors are all republicans pandering to the wealthy AMA lobby.
ICD-10 is a superior method of coding and analyzing health data and the rest of the world has been on this system for a decade or more. Time to evolve, monkey boys.
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