New ICD-10 bill asks for transition period, but not a delay
A new bill by U.S. Rep. Diane Black wants an 18 month period where no claims can be denied due to coding errors.
U.S. Rep Diane Black (Flickr photo)
A new bill by U.S. Rep. Diane Black, R-Tenn., is taking aim at ICD-10. But this bill only asks for government leniency in the form of a transition period, but not an all-out delay.
The bill, H.R.2247, was filed on Wednesday, asks the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services “to provide for transparent testing to assess the transition under the Medicare fee-for-service claims processing system from the ICD-9 to the ICD-10 standard, and for other purposes.”
Full text of the bill has not been posted.
According to the Journal of the American Health Information Management Association, the bill would not delay the Oct. 1 rollout of the diagnostic coding vocabulary. It also wouldn’t ask the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to accept dual coding of ICD-9 and ICD-10 after the switchover date. Instead, the bill just wants HHS to closely monitor the rollout for 18 months to make sure any unforeseen issues are being addressed. During that time, now claim could be denied due to ICD-10 coding errors.
[Also: Republican floats fresh ICD-10 delay bill]
The bill, which is co-sponsored by Reps. Andy Harris, R-Maryland; Larry Buckson, R-Indiana, and David Roe, R-Tennessee, has been sent to the House Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means committees.
It’s a far less dramatic course than taken by fellow Republican Rep. Ted Poe, who last week filed a bill for an all-out delay of ICD-10. While legislative tracker GovTrack gave’s Poe’s bill a 1 percent chance of making it out of committee, the same site gave Black’s bill a 7 percent chance, which is still very low.
