HHS Postpones ICD-10 Compliance

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is delaying by a year the deadline for health-care organizations to comply with new electronic disease-classification codes. The new deadline will be Oct. 14, 2014.

The postponement, announced today, gives health IT and health care providers and medical insurers more time to complete complex coding changes required for electronic health care transactions under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996. The new disease-classification codes are known as ICD-10.

HHS says in a fact sheet that the ICD-10 conversion "will lead to improved accuracy in reimbursement for medical services, fraud detection, and historical claims and diagnoses analysis for the health care system." The agency noted that industry groups have had concerns about meeting the 2013 compliance date, in part because of problems in implementing related data standards, known as Version 5010. Providers must comply with Version 5010 before implementing ICD-10, HHS said.

"HHS believes the change in the compliance date for ICD-10, as proposed in this rule, would give providers and other covered entities more time to prepare and fully test their systems to ensure a smooth and coordinated transition among all industry segments," the agency said.

In a separate news release today, HHS said that creating a standardized health plan identifier under HIPAA will save providers and insurers up to $4.6 billion over 10 years by streamlining and automating administrative processes.

"These important simplifications will mean doctors can spend less time filling out forms and more time seeing patients," HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in the news release.