The following are some interesting points from the press release:
- ICD-9 contains 17,000 codes.
- ICD-10 contains 155,000 codes.
- HHS received over 3,000 comments concerning the ICD-10 proposed rules.
- Bowing to requests from commenters, HHS pushed back the compliance date by 2yrs from the proposed rule to the final rule.
The press release can be found here.
Those of us in healthcare quality that run reports based on ICD-9 CM codes will have to overhaul our scripts, programs, and definitions to prepare for this. I'm certainly glad that HHS gave us another two years for the changeover.
Hopefully the private insurance carriers will convert to ICD-10 at the same time. Otherwise, we'll have the same nightmare as when MS-DRGs came out for Medicare but private insurance was still using the the old DRG grouper.
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I remember when we were told ICD 10 would be here in 2000 but was pushed back due to Y2K concerns. I agree the change will be difficult but as I understand ICD-10 the codes will have greater specificity, which is something folks who actually use administrative data have been screaming about for years. The real headache will come to those brave individuals who have acutally learn completely new coding conventions, and implore the physicians to document to that level of detail. We all can agree it can be difficult to get physicians to change how they document in the patient record- our only hope is electronic medical records can keep up with this change and assist us all.
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